The Collapse
by heyyCarrieAnn
Summary: The building they first met in is going to be torn down, so Alex and Caroline decide to go there and stay till the end. A suicide pact of sorts. Their story is told through flashbacks as they wait for the Collapse. Chapters 1-4.
1. Chapter 1-4

**PART 1**

**Chapter One**

Before the dust can settle, the whole building has to come down. Alex realized this as he sat against the wall and looked across the room at Caroline in her blue windbreaker. _Always that blue windbreaker_. She was playing with a piece of metal that the construction crew had thought too small to remove while outside the wind threw itself against the seventh floor window in a desperate attempt to get through the cracks. _Shiver, zip, snap._ He watched as Caroline zipped her jacket up to her throat.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

She shook her head and kept toying with the scrap metal. Usually she was more talkative than this. _Maybe it was nerves?_ The stripped concrete wall did all it could to support Alex's back as he sat against it and watched Caroline from across the room. Outside the window above her head an early morning mist had begun to envelop the building. There was nothing but the pewter sky, nothing but this building, nothing left to do. He looked through the dusty pane, and suddenly he was himself but at a different time.

He remembered being thirteen years old when he first saw the mist. Having woken up early to go pick up some dry cleaning for his mother he saw a side of the town he had almost never seen before—the morning side. On that day he stepped out under the colorless sky of an early summer day and felt the residue of the storm that had ripped through the neighborhood in the first hours of the morning. The air was still and wet, the leaves dark and spilling droplets, and the neighbors' houses unpeopled, at least from this angle, and Alex would have liked to keep it that way. He shut the gate quietly behind him before starting down the leaf-covered sidewalk.

As he reached the end of the block he turned right on Main Street instead of his usual left. Had he gone left on Main, he would have ended up in the town center where he walked or biked almost every day during his childhood summers when he tired of reading. It had everything, the town center left on Main. It had his friends, the ones he'd grown up with, it had the ice cream parlor, the one with the extra-large mint chocolate chip waffle cone, and it had dollar stores where you could buy plastic action figures in every color nature never intended. Those were the times, those left on Main times, the times before he knew what blood mixed with gunmetal tasted like, before he felt every effort he made go to waste, and before the cold slight of a girl's hand pulled a curtain over his life.

On this summer morning, however, the world had long begun to change, and Alex turned right and not left. Already he noticed the trees growing sparser and glimpsed the tops of the only high-rises in town that stood like stone monuments of their own inappropriateness. He continued his journey under the weight of the smoky clouds and became aware that he was now completely surrounded by industrial sprawl that told tales of the global crisis. The buildings here were taller with facades of brick in varying states of decay, and the alleys showed signs of neglect. The only grass in sight was the scrub kind that protruded indecorously from gaps in cracking concrete. Alex walked on with an increasing odd sense that something corrupting lurked in the air. He wished he had worn more than a t-shirt and shorts, anything, really, that he could zip up to keep out this sinister air. Having nothing of the sort, he strode on and resolved to ignore these feelings that were surely just products of the empty, early morning streets. Even so, he made a mental note to give himself a thorough examination in the mirror when he got home to be sure that the obsidian grime he felt seeping into the pores under his arm hair was really nothing. He dodged a puddle on his way and almost did not see the overflowing trash can right in front of him. He sidestepped the can and ended up bumping into something else, something solid but unmistakably human. He looked up into the jarring features of a dreadfully old man with hollow eyes and an old cigarette between his nonexistent lips.

"I, I'm sorry, sir! Excuse me!" Alex said quickly, trying to rein in stutter in his voice. The old man said nothing and merely looked at him, or rather through him, as if there were something more important on the other side. Alex corrected his path and hurried on, trying to disregard his pounding heart.

_What else to think of?_ He steered his mind quickly to the task at hand—picking up dry-cleaning for his mother. He remembered he had to pick up four items: two skirts, a blouse, and a blazer. _How much money had she given him? Thirty dollars. Would that be enough?_ He clutched the bills in his pocket. _What street was he coming to? How much further till the cleaner's? Was the man still staring after him? Better not to look._ A woman emerged from a closed restaurant with a folded-up grocery cart. She glanced in Alex's direction but then swiftly turned down her dark, bovine eyes and fixed the salmon-hued scarf on her head before crossing the street, cart in tow, to start her errand.

There it was: the mist—a swirling mass of thick, filmy gray vapor clustering around the tops of the high-rises, choking out of them whatever life they still contained. It shrouded the windows of an apartment complex with its hoary bulk while slowly, sluggishly making its way to the next one. It never released its grip on the buildings as it moved, but only stretched, sending thin projections of itself to latch on to the next available surface.

Alex's feet would not go further as he looked at the mist. His whole body lost its inertia and he stopped, unable to do anything but stare into the eastern sky at the pale mass coiling its way down the river. He wanted to run, but if he continued he would be going the same direction as the mist, the two of them traveling together like a shadow you cannot shake. So he paused for a time and waited for it to pass. If anyone ever asked, he would not be able to say exactly how long he stood like that, waiting as the fog dipped and drained onto the sidewalks below.

And now a decade later it found him. Outside the window above Caroline's head it leaned calmly, scarcely breathing, waiting for him to come out. He smiled slightly when he thought about how long it would have to wait there. The building rattled beneath him, and he heard a drill taking bites out of the concrete. He looked at Caroline whose eyes always gave her away. _Fear_. This was one of the only times he could remember seeing her look scared, and maybe he was imagining it even now. He watched as she got up and pressed her nose to the window.

"Look."

"At what?" Alex did not move.

"I want to mess with them for a little bit before they bring us down," she said gazing down at the ground. "Do you think we could?"

"What exactly do you want to do to them?" Alex asked from his seated position. He saw no point in calling any attention to their perch. Up here they were hidden. Up here they were safe.

"I don't know, but we should do something. Maybe we could drop something? Or write a sign and post it in this window?" She turned and looked at Alex who had not moved. "Just come _look_ at them."

Slowly Alex pulled himself off the cement floor that had gotten so comfortable underneath him and joined Caroline at the window. He looked down where her eyes had been fixed and saw the bright colors of the construction crew's clothing cut through the pre-dawn air. Though Alex could not tell what the workers were doing, he imagined them sipping gas station coffee as they looked over old building plans. They might be mixing words about utility lines with inquiries about each other's families and other banalities. It occurred to him that he should have put more effort into small talk during life. There had to be something more to it that he never understood, otherwise why would people do it so often? He felt Caroline looking impatiently at him.

"So, what do you think?"

"I don't know, I guess a sign would be ok." He turned his head and locked his eyes on hers. They were so large and eager, even here in a dying library in a torn-up city in a lackluster state in a has-been country. He bent slightly to bring her against him, feeling the familiar melt of her excited body. This was the only way he had ever discovered to get her onto his level.

"Alex…" she trailed off and buried her head in his chest. Pressing her close to him he lost track of demolition crews, riots, and everything else that had ever existed until the only things left were the steadiness of her breathing and the clean scent of her hair. _What was that scent in her hair?_ Even the cold stopped biting at his cheeks now, and he thought it would be ok if this was what the world was forever.

A few seconds later she pulled away slightly and stood looking up at him. Her eyes always said things that her mouth never could, and Alex needed to infer the best, especially now. He guessed that she wanted to tell him she was happy she had finally made the decision to come up here with him and stay till the end, and that the mistakes of the past couple years meant nothing because they were finally here together. But instead of saying anything she moved her hands up and placed them on either side of his neck before kissing him again, firmly but sweetly. There was no romance in the gesture; only reassurance. _Was it meant more for him or for her?_ Finally Caroline separated her body from his and sat back down against the wall, and Alex slid down next to her because he did not want to look out the window and see the workers again. Their silent small talk exhausted him. As they sat there side by side he felt like he should say something imperative or sentimental. Maybe he could recite that line of Whitman's he liked so much…no, it was gone. So instead:

"I can't believe it's been three years."

**Chapter Two**

"I know." Her answer seemed to come from very far away.

Caroline looked around the bare, dusty space and felt very far from where she had been, but as she glanced around the room, the fluorescent lights slowly came on and the floor tiles brushed themselves off. Bookshelves rose out of the floorboards, chairs sprouted out of the walls, and carpets rolled out across the ground. Joyce, Keats, Byron, and their critics, all cloth-covered and bound, took their places on the shelves. Caroline was no longer sitting on a cold floor, but on a wooden chair at a table in the corner with a book about Hegel upside down in front of her. She looked up and saw Alex heading down an aisle toward her. He was wearing a sweater over a collared shirt that he had buttoned up as far as it could go and shoes that almost but not quite matched what he was wearing. She recognized the sweater in the way that someone who has worn a pair of jeans a hundred times does, but for some reason this evening it looked new. He looked new. Then he set his shoulder bag down on her table and offered his hand.

"Hi, I'm Alex. I think we're partners for this project."

"Caroline." She reached out her hand and shook his. "I just got here, so I haven't looked at much yet," she said to fill the space while he unpacked his books and sat down. As he took his time arranging them carefully on the table she stole a glance at her watch. If she could get out of here by 9:30 she would have time to go to her friend's dorm room for a drink or two before starting her French assignment. She noticed she was tapping her foot up and down so she crossed her legs the other way to stop it.

"Yeah," Alex said casually, "I actually read all of this, but didn't understand most of it." Then he looked at her for the first time, and she saw him: bold-featured and fair-haired like the soldiers in photographs on her grandmother's dresser. The Second World War destroyed families, separated lovers, and ripped apart whole nations, but it made for some nice photographs. Crisp uniforms, brass buttons, and bold smiles gleaming with the thrill of duty, of purpose—Caroline wondered what her father and uncle had done with those pictures after her grandmother passed.

"Neither did I," she replied, smoothing her hair and looking intently at the work in front of her to avoid looking at Alex. His nose was a little too big and his eyes a touch too gray, but his jaw was strong and he looked clean. She glanced around but no one she knew was sitting nearby. _Too bad_. She would have liked her friends to see her with him. "That's why I'm going to rely on my notes from class."

"You have notes from class?" he asked. "I thought you spent all your time doing the Sudoku from the newspaper."

She looked up and caught a glimmer in his eye.

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be," she said. "You don't think I'm going to be a good partner. I see."

"No, no. I mean—" Alex smiled, and it caught her off guard. During class he always looked so sullen that she never noticed how symmetrical and dimpled it was.

"Oh, no, I get it," she continued. "You're all 'Oh, man, I got the girl who doesn't pay attention in class as my partner. Now I'm going to have to do all the work just to pass. God, this sucks.'"

"Ok, you caught me," he said. He was laughing now. "So go on and prove me wrong."

"I'll do my best." Caroline flipped over her book to an open page. "Alright, Hegel. Let's see what you've got." She paused with the end of her pen in her mouth and looked hard at the words without reading them. "Where do we even start?"

"I don't really know," Alex said, and nothing more. A few long seconds of silence passed while Caroline tried to think of anything she remembered from class. To keep her hands busy she dug in her backpack for her Chap Stick, in the process pulling out several business cards, a pen, and other junk. Alex looked over at the pile of things amassing in front of her.

"You sure have a lot of stuff," he remarked.

Caroline detected no tone in his voice that could clue her in to the intention of his words, but she felt like he was accusing her of something.

"Well, dear old Hegel does say that property is necessary for mutual social recognition." She applied the Chap Stick efficiently and then stuck it in her bag, pleased with her comment. If there were a time to sound smart, this was it.

"That's what gets me about him," Alex said looking at some bookshelves off to the side. "If we don't own anything then we can't see each other as people? It doesn't make sense to me. I'd like to think we have more than we own." Alex stopped talking but was still staring over at the bookcases.

Caroline tried to digest his words but all she could focus on was his lips as they moved. "I see what you're saying," she managed to say, but she could feel her brain taking off in seventy different directions. She watched Alex's eyes move from the bookshelves down to the open notebook in front of him. His handwriting on the page was tiny. Miniscule, actually, and he wrote in columns down the page, not across the lines like everyone else. _Why does he do that? Is it to save space or to organize his notes better? Does he have some weird sort of obsessive compulsion?_ She stopped and told herself to think about that later. Or maybe even ask him about it. After rerouting her brain she asked: "Like what? What do we have?"

"I'm not sure yet. I don't know if anyone's figured it out, except for maybe monks and other ascetics," Alex replied. "They still live so simply and hardly need anything."

"That's an entirely different matter," Caroline said. "You're bringing religion into the equation, and that's math I can't do."

Alex was quiet. He looked like he might be getting ready to say something so Caroline waited.

"Not big on math, huh?" he finally asked, but he looked like he was thinking of something else now. That lost look that Caroline usually saw him wear had come back into his eyes.

"Not really," she said shaking her head.

"What are you into then? You know, as far as subjects go."

"I'm studying communications and international affairs with a specialization in France and Francophone countries," Caroline answered. She eyed him as she spoke because he seemed wholly uninterested even though he had asked the question. _What is his motive?_ Usually boys who asked questions like this were trying to get something from her, but Alex seemed different, like he didn't care either way, like she could have said "I'm studying the art of contortion with a minor in the Kama Sutra," and he would have nodded and said "That's nice."

"Eventually I want to be a journalist for a transnational media outlet so I can bring attention to the struggles in developing countries, especially efforts for women's rights and sustainability." she finished. As she uttered the words her mind began to pack a suitcase and get on a plane headed for a conference in Holland, Egypt, or Tunisia. She suddenly wanted to be _anywhere_ that wasn't this library, way up on the seventh floor of one of the university's most ancient buildings surrounded by dead authors and dust and a boy that would barely look at her. She saw herself striding down a foreign avenue, a leather bag in one hand and a book in the other, heading to sit in on a discussion on global affairs by the world's luminaries. _Maybe there would be Turkish coffee or Russian tea cakes or—_

"Nice," Alex said, dragging her out of her daydream. "Ambitious."

"Yeah, I suppose," she said, but she knew she could make a change in the world somehow, even if _was_ only by raising awareness. _How can anyone respond to problems if they don't know they exist?_ If she could cross the globe to find faint sparks of hope maybe people wouldn't be so despairing. Maybe they would actually make an effort if they thought the situation wasn't so bleak. "What are you studying?" she asked, silently guessing sociology or music or some other relatively useless degree.

"Literature," he said.

_Obviously_.

"Very cool!" she said a little more loudly than necessary, aware of a smile that showed too many teeth spreading across her face.

"I don't know what I'm doing with it yet," Alex mumbled as if responding to her mental criticism.

Caroline felt the urge to help him. "Well I'm sure all that reading has made you a pretty good writer. You can do lots of things if you can write well." Alex did not look convinced. Actually, Alex did not look much of anything. He just sat there in his grown-up schoolboy outfit looking not _at_ her but _near_ her. Caroline waited, hoping he would say something to reassure her that there were actual thoughts running through his brain. She began to wonder what an aneurism looked like.

"I write fiction sometimes, but that's not much these days," he said coming halfway back to life. "And I do it badly." He offered a small smile that did not match the fog of discomfort clouding his eyes.

"I'm sure that's not true," she said sincerely. "I'd like to read something of yours sometime, if you'd let me."

"Perhaps, but only if you tell me exactly how much you hate it when you're finished."

"Done. I hate pretty much every piece of fiction I read, so why should yours be any different?"

"Excellent." He grinned over at her, and she had to look down at her books. That perfect smile was because of her, because of something she said.

"Well, after all this hard work I really could use a cigarette," Alex said. "Want to come with and get some air for a bit?"

"Sure," she said reflexively. She closed the book in front of her and put on her coat while Alex waited. Then she grabbed her bag, and the two of them strode to the exit while Updike, Twain, and Murakami looked on in silence

**Chapter Three**

Alex exited through the glass doors of the library with Caroline at his heels. He remembered to hold the door for her just in time before fixing his eyes on a spot on a low brick wall where they could sit for a few minutes and he could smoke. He could not tell if the burning in his brain and the feverish tingling of his skin was from a routine nicotine craving or from some strange reaction to his new project partner. The only way to find out was to light up, so he led the way over to the wall where a few others sat taking smoke breaks despite the freezing November air. _Martyrs for their art_. A skinny guy in a plaid shirt and no coat smoked his cigarette with a saturnine gaze while two girls in matching yoga pants giggled and tried to shield themselves from the wind while they lit theirs. Alex settled himself on the cold stone wall far enough away from both parties so he would not have to think about them. The stone was pleasantly cold beneath him as he settled in.

"Do you smoke?"

"Not really," she said joining him on the wall. He lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. The wall looked out over the quad where a few solitary trees and their leaning shadows kept watch over the dark, lonely grass. So far the season had not seen as much snow as it usually did, but the grass was frozen just the same. He exhaled. The nicotine swam through his bloodstream like guppies on a mad race to his brain, but the agitated sensation did not go away.

"What does that mean 'not really'?" he asked finally.

"Sometimes when I'm drinking or around friends, I get caught up in the moment and forget what I'm doing. You know." She smiled at him quickly then looked away. Alex watched as the light from the three-quarters moon settled at the top of Caroline's hair and wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through it. _She might let me sometime_, he thought_. Just keep talking. Keep chatting like you don't care. What was the last thing she said? _

"There was one summer when I smoked a decent amount because I was hanging out with a group that did almost nothing else," Caroline continued, staring off across the quad and kicking her feet lightly against the wall. "At first I really liked doing it. I guess I felt cool, and it was fun, but as soon as I bought a pack because I felt stressed, I quit. I realized that it had stopped being something social and had become a habit. I really don't like it anymore." She turned and looked at Alex with her large eyes. "Why do you smoke?"

Alex took another drag and then blew the smoke out through his mouth. "I guess it's just something I do. Some people talk a lot, some people like the color orange. I smoke." No one had ever asked him that question, and he had no better answer prepared. Caroline was looking at him with slightly furrowed eyebrows.

"Ok, I suppose that makes sense," she replied. "Even though it doesn't." She smiled again, and Alex noticed something unbalanced about her smile that he liked. He decided right then that he wanted to see it more often. "As long as we're talking about habits," Caroline continued, "why is your handwriting so small in your notebook?" Before Alex could answer he saw his friend Victor approaching.

"Alex!" Victor exclaimed reaching to shake Alex's hand. With the other one he threw a newspaper down in front of Alex and gestured forcefully to the headline. "Would you look at that?"

Alex looked. _Greece exits Eurozone_. He looked back at Victor, who always wore coats and sweatshirts several sizes bigger than he needed to. He wore them with the hoods up, too, so he looked like a mouse peering out from a hole in the wall every time he looked at you.

"Is that really a surprise?" Alex asked. "It's coming on the heels of all these riots about the austerity measures, so I figured this might happen."

"You figured? How come you didn't say anything about it? I've never heard this opinion from you before," Victor said as he began furiously lighting a cigar. Alex had always thought Victor's cigars a quirky habit, but now in the sharpened awareness of Caroline's presence he found it downright weird and was embarrassed.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Didn't know it was such a huge deal to you."

"You could have at least written something about it," Victor said, visibly flustered.

Alex did not understand what Victor was so worked up about. He took another drag on his cigarette.

"That's true!" Caroline jumped in. "The newspaper is always looking for people to write relevant editorials or opinion columns on real issues and not fluff stuff. You should send something in sometime."

She looked so excited about this new idea that Alex nodded, but he knew he would not ever do that.

"Yes! I like the way she thinks. I'm Victor."

"Caroline." They shook hands.

"Enchanted."

Only now did Alex realize he had forgotten to introduce them. He looked at the dry grass planted near the wall as it swayed gently in the wind coming off the lake and felt content breathing in the smoke wafting from his friend's cigar. He liked cigar smoke because unlike cigarette smoke, it had layers that he could pull apart—dried fruit, chicory, tree bark, leather, earth. Each puff became a puzzle for him to sort out and put back together like the thousand-piece jigsaws he liked working on as a kid. Cigars told stories of where they had been, stories of wars and hunts that made Alex want to turn his ear and listen. Cigarettes never said anything. They just helped him stay where he was without feeling like his insides were bursting into a thousand pieces. He took another draw of the one he was holding and thought that he might pick up a box of cigars this weekend to try them out.

When he focused back in on the conversation he heard Caroline telling Victor about a political editorial she had written for the school newspaper where apparently she was a part-time columnist. Her words passed straight through Alex's brain like they had somewhere more important to be, but the tones stuck. While far from girlish, her voice could not be called low either. Rather it had the smooth quality of a freshly paved road with little hills, dips, and curves every now and then. Alex wanted to climb in the backseat and close his eyes while someone drove him along these endless, winding paths.

Suddenly he felt a dark layer fall over the night. He looked around to see what had happened and caught sight of Victor eyeing Caroline contemptuously.

"What are you trying to say?" Victor asked from inside his cave. "Are you talking about the Global People's Collective?"

Caroline shrugged, and Alex wondered what she had said. It could have been next to nothing because Victor's fierce views seemed to be constantly getting bruised from some innocuous comment or another.

"Watch it," Victor cautioned before taking a long sip—it could only be called a sip—from his steadily smoking cigar. "The Chinese live better than most British."

"Tell it to the kids in Beijiing who can't access Wikipedia to look up 'human rights violation,'" Caroline snapped.

Victor snatched his paper from the stone wall.

"You're just in denial because your precious ideals are failing," he spat.

"They're not failing, only faltering," Caroline returned. "What we need is reform."

Alex's nerves tingled, and he thought it must be that "fight or flight instinct" that people were always talking about, but he could not decide if he should stand up for Caroline or get out of the way of Victor's admirable fury, so he just sat still while the stub of his cigarette burned.

"What we _need_ is revolt," Victor went on. "Look at the poverty in Ireland. In Portugal! Distinguished, educated men and women are begging for scraps and digging through dumpsters because the system chewed them up. This system is a fad, kids, and all this is clear if you look at any newspaper. Greek citizens are pelting Chobani through the air at their "leaders" for Chrissakes." He turned toward Alex. "Sorry, but I can't argue this anymore with people who refuse to see the truth. Plus I've got a paper to write before tomorrow morning." Then he faced Caroline again. "You seem pretty smart, and I can tell you've got the energy to do great things, but just don't do them for the wrong side. Ciao, friends." He adjusted his hood and stomped off on his short legs toward the library entrance, flinging open the door when he got to it.

Caroline looked at Alex with an expression he couldn't decipher. "Well," she said. "Interesting fellow."

"He's a character," Alex agreed as he stomped out his cigarette. He wanted to get out of the charged air and go back to the sanctuary of rotting intellectuals and dead revolutionaries. They were much more palatable than the live ones. "Ready to go back inside?"

"Yeah, let's go," Caroline said hopping off the wall. Alex trained his eyes on the ground as they started walking toward the doors, and then Caroline spoke again. "You didn't defend me," she said matter-of-factly.

"I know," he said as he held open the door. "Maybe I didn't think you were right."

Caroline passed through the open door and then paused in the brilliant fluorescence of the library lighting through which Alex could only see the outline of her shape. "Did you or did you not?"

Alex shrugged. "Come on, Hegel is getting lonely up there."

"Yeah, the last thing we want on our hands is an angry, German philosopher," she agreed laughing.

_That laugh_.

"I don't know. I think I'd take one of those over Victor any day."

A smile spread over Caroline's face as she leaned her head against the stone wall in the now-empty building.

"I knew I liked you that first day," she said looking again at Alex. "You were so weird!"

"I beg your pardon, but I believe it is _you_ who is the weird one."

"Me? Name anything I do that is so out of the ordinary you have to call it weird." She looked at him challengingly.

"Out of the ordinary? Nope. You do some things that are just plain unusual."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one, you name inanimate objects. Electronics, plants—"

"Plants are animate!"

"Fine. But you get it."

"Well, you wanted a Power Rangers tattoo. I win."

"Hey! I still think that's a good idea," he said patting his shoulder. "Right here, yeah, that would have been sweet." Then they got quiet. Caroline pressed her lips together and Alex turned his gaze toward the wall. He knew they would never get tattoos or dodge pigeons on the sidewalk as they walked downtown or stay outside and watch summer afternoons waste into dusky purple. All that was left was this barren room seven stories in the air and the sound of the wind curling and whining outside.

**Chapter Four**

Alex remembered the same wind throwing itself against the window of his apartment on a February evening a few years earlier. It was a Friday during the second semester of the year, and so far he had spent the evening writing cover letters for internships and jobs he did not want. On the other hand, none of the options were completely distasteful to him. His brain was split, that's all, and the half that was not focused on his computer screen was wandering the setting of the book he was in the middle of: over a Siberian tundra it trekked, not feeling the cold because of the heavy fur lined boots on its feet. It looked at the scrub grass that was not quite green and at the limitless sky that was not quite blue, and it did not hate them, nor did it love them or fear them. They were unremarkable in every way and yet captivating. Alex's brain kept walking and waiting to feel something, to see something that would rouse it to sentiment. It wished for a flower, tiny and yellow and practically hidden behind a rock, so it could believe in small things. It wished for an insect, bobbing and weaving in the stems, so it could remember life. It scanned the rangeland for flowers or fruit or water but met only the endless horizon that sat regally upon the wasted plain.

Suddenly Alex's brain noticed motion rising over the top of a hill a hundred yards ahead and upon closer inspection realized it was a herd of horses headed steadfastly in its direction. _Movement!_ But, no, the horses were not alone. Atop them were bulky figures dressed in bits of fur, leather, and rustic cloth. They had strange faces with small, deep-set black eyes and wide, unsmiling mouths. Each one of them carried a variation of the same spear-like weapon in their gigantic hands, some with endings of balls covered in iron spikes, others more akin to blades. Alex's brain froze on the empty prairie and looked quickly in each direction for something to hide behind. _Useless._ There was nothing but open land between it and the impending riders. An alarm began to go off from somewhere, and Alex's brain recognized it and knew it was prompting some sort of action. _But what?_ It could not register the sound in its panic. Seconds passed, and the horses drew nearer with their riders never losing grip on the terrible battle toys they clutched in their palms. Finally his brain recognized the sound. It was not an alarm, but a phone ringing, and not from anywhere on the tundra but from over on the windowsill in his real-life bedroom where it had been charging for hours.

"Shit," Alex mumbled as he pushed his chair out of the way and hurried to other end of the room. The wandering part of his brain scurried back and leaped into his head to fuse with its other half. "Hello?"

"Yo!" cried a familiar voice. "What are you doing this instant?"

It was Jack.

"Ummm cover letters." He snubbed out the cigarette burning in his coffee-mug-turned-ashtray.

"Well, bro, stop it. I've got something better to do that will get you to stop moping around," Jack said, and Alex pictured him teetering with excitement. Ever since freshman year when they had met in their college orientation and bonded over a mutual hatred of motorized vehicles and a love of bad zombie movies, Jack had been Alex's equivalent of a Prozac taken with a vodka-Red Bull .

"Why do you think I'm moping around?"

"Dude, I know you. You mope when there's no moping to be done. But never mind that. Are you in?"

Alex knew there would be no point in inquiring about details before answering.

"Yeah, I'm in. As if I have any choice," he added.

"Good. Ok, we're going to my friend's friend's loft over in East Town so bring your I.D., your subway card, and a gram if you have one. I'm getting a bottle. The rest should be provided."

Alex nodded from his end of the phone.

"Oh, and don't dress like an idiot. Do you still wear those big glasses? They might be a nice touch."

"Yeah, they're here somewhere." Alex scanned the room. "But I'm not wearing them. Only posers wear those now."

"Fine. Whatever. Alright, it's 9:30 now, so I'll meet you in an hour at the train?"

"I'll be there."

"Cool, later," Jack said before clicking off. Alex ended his side of the call and set his phone back on the windowsill. Outside the thick curtain of night had long fallen, but the streetlights glittered with promise. Alex wanted to breathe it in and fill his room with it so he opened the window just a crack. Outside he heard the noises that signaled the start of Friday night: shrieks of delight from girls who were stepping out in new shoes, laughter from students who had pushed exams and papers far from their minds, and electronic music that readied thrill-seekers for late nights. He was glad to shake off the inertia of the evening and trade it for restlessness. He hungered to be among those who were already parading down the sidewalks heading towards ancient brick buildings that promised dizzy distractions from all the bourgeois ailments that plagued them. He opened his desk to search for leftover weed while silently giving thanks for Jack's existence.

Not long later, sweater on and the plastic bag of herb in his pocket, he shut the door behind him and bounded down the old wooden stairs of his apartment. The chill of the night air was just what he needed to wake up his somnolent spirit, and he walked briskly down the street, pulling up the zipper of his gray jacket as he went. At the end of the block he checked for oncoming headlights and then jogged across the wide street to where Jack was waiting for him on the other side.

"What up?" Jack hollered. In way of reply, Alex patted his pocket where the little bag sat snugly and raised his eyebrows. Jack chuckled and brandished his own weapon, a fifth of vodka encased in a paper bag. The cap was already off, and he handed it to Alex who took a hearty swig.

He sighed as the stringent liquid made its way from his throat into his stomach. Normally he did not drink vodka, but tonight it would do. He passed the bottle back to Jack. "Here you go."

"Much obliged!" Jack took an equally large gulp before screwing on the cap. Then he looked at what he had done, unscrewed it once more and tossed the cap in a nearby bush. "I have a good feeling about tonight."

"I have that same feeling." Alex liked the clearness of the sky and even thought he spied a star. "I've been working on some bullshit all night and need a break. My head is just done."

"Oh, I feel you. My physics advisor is on my ass about this capstone project I'm working on, but I don't even want to think about it right now," Jack said before taking another gulp from the bottle. "Now, we live! We breathe!" he proclaimed, sending his fist in the air.

"Here, here!" Alex exclaimed at a volume he hoped rivaled Jack's. They continued in that manner for a block or two until they came upon the train station. Like professionals they swiped their passes and trotted up the stairs to the open-air platform where they stood joking and passing the bag-covered bottle between them while they waited for the train. Alex relished in the warmth that began pleasantly coating his nerves and could not find it in him to care for the law that forbade drinking in public. While they stood, a breeze that would have been cold to anyone else swept through from the west, and Alex briefly thought about the window he had left open in his room. An announcement for their arriving train banished this thought permanently from his head, and he turned his focus to Jack's monologue about the influence of the Cure relative to that of the Smiths. As the train rushed in, its headlights blinded him for a moment causing his other senses to sharpen. His skin pulsed with an acute awareness of the air being pushed at him in strong waves, and the thundering clatter of the arriving train overwhelmed his ears. Finally it stopped, the doors opened, and they walked on.

Within a half hour they were walking the last leg of their journey after having gotten off the train in a neighborhood primarily filled with warehouses in varying states of usefulness and streets overseen by three or four different gang factions. Alex put his head down and walked quickly down the sidewalk beside his friend as they headed in the direction of the address Jack had been given. Streetlights shed ghostly pale light upon the empty streets and the rusting, flatbed trucks that lined them. There were no restaurants or shops of any kind that could serve as a refuge for the weary, the lonely, or the scared. Only looming, featureless buildings covered in cheap siding or ancient brick could thrive in this environment, and Alex and Jack passed one after another on their way. Alex began wondering if they were going the right direction.

Half a block later an unmarked white van pulled onto the street they were on. It was the first vehicle Alex had seen in motion since exiting the train, and his hackles rose in defiance. The van rolled slowly down the road past them, then stopped at the corner and idled for a few seconds before turning around to go down the road again, even more slowly this time. Alex might have been scared had it not been for the liquor numbing his instincts. Still, his skin formed a protective layer of goose bumps and his muscles tensed. Even Jack was not speaking now, and seemed wholly focused on a forward trajectory. At the end of the road the van turned onto another street with no signs of returning, and Alex let a wave of relief wash through him. He hoped this desolate pilgrimage would be over soon.

As if answering his thoughts, a new color broke into the pale, silent wasteland. About a block in front of them outside one of the unremarkable warehouses Alex saw a pink light bulb illuminating a doorway where a small line had formed.

"That's it!" Jack exclaimed. "It has to be."

As they got closer Alex saw a tall guy with glasses and a substantial beard standing in the doorway with his arms folded listening to a shorter guy also wearing glasses. The short one kept talking quickly while glancing around. Neither of them seemed concerned with the line growing in front of them. Seconds after verifying the address Alex and Jack approached the unassuming warehouse and became part of a shifting and shivering line. It showed no signs of diminishing so Alex took the opportunity to light a cigarette and relax into waiting. Jack was anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot and kept touching his hair to make sure it was still doing what he wanted. He was complaining about the cold, or the wind, or the hole in his shoe, but Alex didn't hear exactly what it was because ears were turned toward the muffled sounds of music coming from inside the building. He tried to discern one song from another, but could only hear the thudding of a strong bass.

"Fucking finally," Jack said as the bearded guy began to look at the I.D's of the first few people in line and nod them through the entrance. He unzipped his jacket, and Alex saw the sweatshirt his friend had thrown over a collared shirt and slim jeans in an attempt to look like he had put no thought into his appearance. "These guys think they can just let us freeze out here while acting important just because they're doing a favor for the DJ's," Jack said in Alex's ear as they advanced a few steps. Alex nodded and threw out his cigarette.

After flashing their I.D's and receiving the disinterested nod of the bearded guy, they were inside. They followed the sound of pulsating dance music up a flight of creaking stairs and through a heavy metal door where they were greeted with an earsplitting swell of electronic beats and neon lights that cut through an otherwise dark and airy loft. The walls were all exposed brick except for one that was covered from top to bottom with television screens flashing abstract art images and photos of bony fashion models. All around them people in leather jackets, tight dresses, and asymmetrical haircuts were talking, swaying, and dancing while holding an array of beverages in their hands. Even on his first scan of the room Alex noticed several girls he would like to dance with before the night was over. He turned to Jack who caught his eye and flashed an approving smile.

"Crazy, dude," Jack said, still smiling. "Good crowd tonight. I think we should use up the bud you have in your pocket and then find some females and do some dancing. All in favor?"

"Aye," Alex said grinning stupidly. "I'm sure we don't need to be discreet in a place like this, but where's the bathroom?"

"Probably up that big staircase there," Jack said pointing. A few girls in heels were already stumbling down it, and more were headed up.

"Yeah, you're right." As they made their way through the pulsing crowd Alex noticed the short guy from outside was now at the DJ table bending with concentration over an expensive-looking computer. His hands worked with incredible speed as the music dipped and dived to cater to the changing needs of the ecstatic dancers.

At the top of the oak staircase Alex and Jack entered a whole other floor of partygoers mingling amidst beige, drywall hallways that could double as gallery space during the daytime. Conversations buzzed passed Alex's ears without actually entering them as he and Jack searched for an appropriate area to blaze. Jack finally stopped in a corner and shrugged.

"This is as good a place as any."

Alex reached in his pocket and pulled out a white, hand-rolled cigarette packed thick with pungent green herb. He lit it, inhaled deeply, blew out smoke, and repeated the process before handing it off to Jack who did the same.

"Good stuff," Jack commented. Alex nodded agreement and took back the joint. He caught sight of two girls standing against the wall not fifteen feet from the spot he and Jack had chosen. The girls were both thin with brown hair, but one of them had hers cut into an asymmetric bob while the other wore hers long, almost touching her waist. There were any number of other characteristics that made them different from each other, but from this distance Alex did not prefer one over the other. As he watched, the long-haired one turned to look over at them and then continued chatting with her friend. Soon both girls were looking. Alex's hazy confidence allowed his eyes to match their gaze, and before long the girls were on their way over.

"Hey," said the short-haired one. She flashed an agreeable smile that just barely made it to her heavily made-up eyes. Alex got the impression that it was a practiced gesture, but it was Hollywood pretty just the same. The long-haired one was smiling, too, although hers was too wide and revealed a smudge of red lipstick freeloading on a crooked front tooth. Alex steered his eyes to look at her ample chest instead. He would have felt bad about it, but figured that any girl who wears a black leather tank top knows what she is getting herself into.

"Hey," Jack responded with a cool smile. "I'm Jack, and this is Alex."

Alex nodded acknowledgement.

"What are your names?"

The girls each responded with similar sounding "K" names that Alex instantaneously forgot. He decided it was the music wafting up from downstairs that distorted his hearing, but did not care enough to ask them to repeat what they had said. Jack seemed to have listened, though, and was now engaging them in some banter about the spelling of one or the other's name.

"I never would have thought to write it that way," he was saying. "How unique!" Long-haired K was smiling while Short-haired K eyed the joint smoking feebly in Alex's hand.

"You want a hit?" he asked her.

"What exactly is in it?"

"Some good bud."

"Yeah," Jack said jumping in. "It's this kind called 'Trujilo's Revenge' that my cousin got from a guy who was here from the Dominican Republic. It won some competition in San Francisco."

The girls both looked impressed, but Alex knew the basement where the ordinary, garden variety weed had been grown, and he knew that Jack knew too. He awarded Jack two points for smoothness.

"Alright, yeah, I'll take a hit," said Short-haired K. She reached with long delicate fingers to take the joint from Alex. He noticed she was looking at him from under her thick, onyx-hued eyelashes the whole time she did this. After inhaling and coughing slightly she passed it to her friend who did the same before giving it back to Alex. The process repeated itself until everyone's brains were on the same plane and there was nothing left but a withered paper shell.

"So, I'm thinking I'd really like to dance right now," Jack said to Alex while bobbing his head in time to the music. Then he turned to face the girls again. "Do you two happen to like dancing?" he asked with exaggerated curiosity.

"Of course!" they cried in reply.

"How about that!" Jack said with a grin. "Shall we?" he offered his hand to Long-haired K. She smiled back and accepted it. "Andiamo!" Jack and his partner headed down the hall toward the stairs. Alex looked at Short-haired K and made some sort of 'ladies first' motion. He walked slightly behind her as they followed the others to the lower-level dance floor that already reeked of smoke and sweat. They weaved through the throbbing crowd, while Alex hunted for a small opening where he could dance without having to grind against dirty strangers. Once he found a spot he didn't completely hate he grabbed Short-haired K's hand and spun her around to face him. She started to move, doing what Alex decided was the best she could do considering the combination of substances coursing through her body. As she twisted and writhed along with the music she dead-bolted her Cleopatra eyes on him, then reached out and touched his arm to bring him closer to her. She was undeniably pretty, and Alex wished he knew at least one thing about her. He pulled her closer.

"So, do you go to school?" he asked. He had to lean in and speak directly into her ear to be heard over the frantic music. She replied in the affirmative and then gave the name of one of the art schools in the downtown district. She continued dancing and did not ask him the question in return. Now her hands were around his neck, and her head lowered, her features blank with the shadows of drugs and rhythms. Alex tried again.

"Where are you from?" he said into her ear.

"I grew up in..."

The music drowned out the rest.

"What?" Alex practically shouted in her ear.

"Kansas City!" she shouted back before her face melted back into the music.

"Oh, I have a friend from there! He said the art scene is getting pretty big."

Short-haired K looked at him and nodded before lowering her head once more. Alex looked around for Jack and finally spotted him in the middle of the crowd with his tongue down Short-haired K's throat. He figured he and Jack would not be returning together that night, and looked back at Short-haired K who was working her lean, perspiring body and gazing up at him. He decided things could be much worse and put both his hands firmly on her hips to press her up against him. He kissed the side of her neck gingerly to gauge willingness, tasting the salt from her sweat, and she responded by lifting her chin to offer up her mouth. Alex needed no further invitation and took her lips in his own while his substance-filled brain rose out of his head and yielded control to his body.

Alex had no idea how many minutes went by in this fashion, but soon Short-haired K pulled back slightly and looked up at him.

"Want to get some air?" she asked. Alex realized with sudden disgust that his forehead was dripping with sweat and his shirt was sticking to his back.

"Yeah, uh-huh, let's go to the roof," he said while his eyes darted around looking for an opening in the throng of dancers. He found a space and started pushing through with drunken lack of discretion while Short-haired K clung to his hand tightly. Alex thought only of the cold fresh air that awaited him outside and wished she would let go for just a minute so he could fight his way out of the crowd more effectively. His head turned left and right, constantly reevaluating the path as he went, until finally he broke into the opening at the back of the room. Taking his first cool breath in what seemed like hours, Alex started walking more quickly and assuredly toward the stairs. He turned to back for a second to check on Short-haired K, but instead his eyes landed on another familiar figure. There on the fringe of the crowd was his former philosophy project partner Caroline. She was standing in a small group laughing at something, then did a little groove to the music before bursting into laughter once more. _That smile. It was incredible_. He wanted her to turn and look at him, to recognize him, to talk to him, but she was focused on her group. He stood frozen in place and considered yelling her name, but Short-haired K pulled his arm.

"Let's _go_." Her feet were pointed toward the stairs, and Alex let her pull him away. Up on the roof he went straight to the railing and pulled out a cigarette. The air was sharp and black, with no trace of the rank perfume and sweat odors from inside, and Alex stared out across the rooftops of other buildings toward the skyscrapers in the distance. Many of them still had their lights on, and Alex wondered what good that did. The people who worked in those offices were home hours before, and even the cleaning crews would have gone. _Was it just so lovers standing on rooftops could watch them glitter in the night?_ Alex thought what a waste it was. He looked to his side and saw Short-haired K talking to some other guy who was wearing sunglasses and a t-shirt with an eagle on it. He did not even pretend to understand why this was happening and took another drag. Then some movement by the door caught his eye, and he watched Caroline come onto the roof with the short DJ who had been playing earlier. The two of them walked over to another corner and the DJ lit a cigarette, inhaled a couple of times, and then offered it to Caroline who accepted. Alex wondered if she were thinking of the conversation they had a couple months ago on the stones in front of the library. A gust of wind passed over the crowd on the roof causing all the girls to shiver and hug their shoulders. Alex looked at Short-haired K in her thin-strapped dress and wondered if she were cold. He took another puff and decided to wait for her to tell him on her own. He really did not want to give her his jacket.

He glanced again over at Caroline who was rubbing her arms vigorously and bouncing on her toes to keep warm. Her shoulders were bare under a modest blue tank top, and her legs, covered in black jeans, looked thinner than Alex remembered. The DJ did not seem to notice her hint and was still talking. Alex wondered if Caroline were actually interested in what he was saying and if she could possibly be attracted to a guy who wore glasses with white plastic frames. She still had not so much as glanced in his direction.

"Can we go back inside now? I'm cold." Short-haired K looked up at him.

"Yeah, fine."

He began walking towards the door without waiting for her. Before entering the building, Alex took one more look in Caroline's direction, and this time she saw him. Something like a flash went across her features, and Alex waved quickly before ducking inside. He did not give her a chance to wave back but was sure she recognized him. Back inside he checked his phone and realized there was a message from Jack saying that he had left with Long-haired K whose real name was apparently Kristen. He did not have any desire to stay at this party any longer and told this to Short-haired K.

"You know, I live only a few blocks from here."

"Really?"

"Yeah, so if you want you can crash at my place."

It was an attractive offer that would allow him to avoid the late-night journey home, until it dawned on him that Short-haired K had no idea that he lived so far away. For all she knew, he could have lived around the corner. The transparency of her invitation marred her beauty somewhat, but Alex accepted anyway. This was better than sitting on a train trying to dodge small talk with drunken homeless people and junkies. She went to get her coat, and then they headed toward the door. On their way down the stairs, Alex saw Caroline and two of her friends on their way up. This time, they both stopped.

"Hey, Alex, right?"

He nodded.

"Do you remember me?" she asked.

"Course, we were partners for that Hegel thing."

"Yeah," she said with a small smile. "That class was a trip."

"Got that right."

"Well, you guys have a good night," Caroline said after a pause and then continued up the stairs. Alex hoped she wasn't going back to find that DJ fuck. He probably lived nearby and would ask her to come over for an after party or something like that so he could get some more drinks in her system and seal the deal before she passed out in his bed at dawn. He wanted to go up and rescue her but knew he had no right. She was only his philosophy partner. Actually, she was his ex-philosophy partner. It's hard to have a less significant relationship than that.

Suddenly he remembered Short-haired K standing beside him in her high heels and skimpy dress.

"Alright, let's go." He put his hand on her elbow as they went down the rest of the stairs and out into the biting cold. She grabbed hold of his hand as they walked, and Alex waited in vain to take comfort in it. Instead he let her lead him back to her high-rise apartment building where she stumbled out of her dress and pulled him into her twin bed with her, kissing him sloppily and letting him do what he wanted to her until they fell into thick sleep.


	2. Chapter 5-11

**Chapter five**

Three weeks went by without a trace of Caroline. Alex wandered across campus to and from class, to the library, to professors' offices, and to the cafes and convenience stores hoping to get a glimpse of her, even if it were just across the near-empty quad. The gray and mushy early spring landscape bogged him down and challenged his shoes to hold together. This was by far his least favorite season. Besides summer. Come to think of it he didn't like winter much either.

Alex began to wonder if Caroline actually went to school here or existed at all. _No, _he told himself_, I'm being too dramatic._ Maybe she simply didn't live near campus or walked mostly on the lake path to get to her classes. Alex usually tried to avoid the lake path because it gave him too much to think about. At least if he walked inland he had crowds to dodge and people he could look at to entertain his brain. _Caroline might not need those distractions, though._ He wondered if she still had his phone number stored from back in November when they did that project together and if she ever thought of using it, even drunkenly while she was at a boring party. He had thought of texting her a few times but had lost her number when his phone fell out of his pocket and got run over by a bus in January. Nothing saved. Maybe sometime, like on a cloudy Saturday afternoon such as this one, she would be sitting in the corner of her living room reading a textbook that mentions Hegel. Maybe she would think idly of the boy she ran into at a loft party who once discussed Hegel's theory of property with her. Maybe it would prompt her to light up his phone with a text about how she feels like a bondsman to Hegel because she can't escape. _Haha._ But Alex's phone did not light up or buzz or do anything, and the only thing he heard was the _click click_ of the coffee maker in the kitchen trying its best to brew a halfway decent cup—a task at which it would ultimately fail.

Alex startled when he actually heard his phone beep from its resting place on the wooden night table by the bed. His first thought was Caroline, but he banished that notion from his mind. Checking his phone he discovered that it was a message from Jack asking him to meet at a nearby coffee shop called The Fifth Column. With his fingers poised over the tiny keyboard he glanced idly at the blank wall while the smell of burnt coffee wafted in from the kitchen. Even the scent of it put a taste in his mouth like rust mixed with dirt, and this was enough to prompt his affirmative response. After replying he set down his phone, pulled on some corduroy pants and a flannel over-shirt that he left partially unbuttoned. After patting his pocket to assure the presence of his American Spirits, he left his apartment through the kitchen door, making sure to turn off the weary coffee maker on his way out.

As he neared The Fifth Column, Alex was already three-fourths of the way through his first cigarette and feeling pretty good. The day was warm for late March with an unusually mild wind rolling through the sidewalks. The sun cast cheery shadows against the facades of the stone buildings from its lazy position in the sky, and Alex let a rare simple happiness overtake him as he walked. The feeling evaporated when he came up to The Fifth Column and noticed Jack was not alone. His friend already had a beverage in front of him and was sitting at a table outside joking with two girls Alex did not recognize. One of them held a cigarette in her hand and had long dark hair, a prominent nose, and lips that were overly rouged for this time of day. She wore a blazer over a patterned dress and a floppy hat that could only be considered ironically. The other girl was dressed simply in a green dress and gray jacket, had considerably lighter, curly hair and was not smoking but smiling at Jack. Alex noticed she had a great smile. After taking a last drag on his cigarette, he flicked it onto the road and approached the gathering already in progress.

"Alex!" cried Jack with a smile on his face. "Come, sit down!" Alex did as Jack suggested and took a seat across from Jack, putting him in between the two girls. "How are you, Alex?" Jack asked, but before Alex could utter a standard reply, Jack launched into introductions. Clearly his well-being was simply a matter of rhetoric. "This lovely lassie here is Annie Caverley," Jack said, motioning to the fair-haired girl.

She smiled and offered her hand. "Nice to meet you," she said pleasantly, and Alex took her hand lightly and nodded.

"And this ravishing creature is Elena Simon," Jack pronounced as he looked at the dark-haired girl.

"Hi," she murmured, smiling briefly before turning her attention back to the cigarette in her hand.

Alex nodded in reply. He really wanted a coffee.

"Well, it seems we started without you," Jack observed. "Hopefully that waiter will be around soon."

"The service here is so slow sometimes," said Annie, stirring what appeared to be a café au lait. "I once waited half an hour for a Panini."

"Inexcusable!" Jack declared. "Why do we still come here? We should boycott!"

"But the atmosphere is so great!" Annie protested. "Where else can we get European-style table service at a coffee place? Nowadays its all 'half-caf-no-foam-mocha-whip' in a paper cup."

"Abominable," Jack said, and Elena nodded in agreement. Alex glanced inside the shop to see what the wait staff was up to and was relieved to see a young man in an apron coming out the door.

"What can I do for you?" The waiter asked, stopping at the table. He was tall and very thin with short hair of an indistinguishable color, somewhere between brown and blond. His entire face would have been completely unremarkable had it not been for the comically large glasses he wore perched on his nose.

"An Americano," Alex replied. "Thanks."

The waiter nodded and looked at the others. "Anything else I can get for you guys?"

"Hmm…" Jack mused. "What do you have in the way of pastries or other little dainties?" He looked at the girls and grinned. Annie returned his smile with an even prettier one that creased her eyes and wrinkled her freckled nose. Elena continued to smoke.

"Today we made a special cinnamon _Pastiera_, just in time for Easter."

"Perfect!" Jack replied. "We'll take two slices."

"Excellent. One Americano and two slices of _Pastiera_," the waiter repeated back, then turned and strode back indoors. Alex wondered when Easter was. He could not remember the last time he had celebrated it in any way.

"So just what _is_ an Americano?" Annie asked. Alex did not realize that her question was directed at him so he didn't reply and just watched some cars passing by on the road in front of them. A few empty seconds of silence hung in the air and eventually grabbed his attention. He looked around and saw Jack glaring at him. Finally he found his footing.

"It's really just an espresso with steaming water added."

"Ahh, I see." Annie was leaning her dainty elbows on the table looking at him like she was waiting for more.

Alex wondered what her big interest was. "Yeah, I think people started calling it that because it's what the American soldiers in Europe used to order instead of espressos during the World War I. Apparently the traditional _café_ was too strong for them."

"Fascinating," Annie replied taking a sip of her drink. "When you compare our coffee to the stuff they have in Europe, it really seems pathetic, so watered down."

"Exactly."

"But sometimes all you want is a never-ending cup of brew," Annie continued. "You just want to sit at a table for hours, and every time the waitress walks by she doesn't even ask, she just fills your mug again and again. Quality be damned."

"Ah, yes the traditional diner, one of America's greatest inventions," Jack affirmed. "I know of a great little place on the corner of Elmdale and Locust. It's only open until four in the afternoon, but they serve excellent breakfast and bottomless coffee."

"Oh, yeah, I know it," Annie nodded.

"Same here," Elena chimed in.

Alex realized this was the first time he heard her say anything. Probably for the best because her voice was somewhat grating.

"That's the one Caroline works at," Elena added.

Alex flinched at the sound of that name. He suddenly fixed his eyes on Elena, a million questions running through his brain. At that moment the tall waiter appeared with their orders. He set a white cup and saucer in front of Alex and placed two slices of a delicate, golden brown filled pastry in the center of the table. Alex felt helpless as the conversation turned away from Caroline and toward the food in front of them. As the others grabbed forkfuls of pastry and discussed its flavor and texture, Alex thought desperately of a way to steer dialogue back in the other direction. He grabbed a fork and took a bite of the _Pastiera_, chewing thoughtfully for a bit.

"Wow, this is pretty great. I don't know where else you can get desserts like this. What's the selection like at that little diner you guys were talking about?"

"At Clark's?" asked Jack. "Oh, it's nothing like this. They only have the standard apple pie, cheesecake, and some muffins. Once I had lemon meringue, too. Maybe they rotate their offerings."

"Ah, ok." Alex nodded and mentally took note of the diner's name. Just knowing this information made him feel so much closer to Caroline, but he still craved to hear them mention her name again, so he pressed on. "So do you go there often?" he asked, looking only at Elena. After all, it was from her lips that name had come.

"Sometimes," she replied absently. "I've got some friends who work there so I pop in every once in a while. Plus, they let you smoke in there," she added with an impish raise of her left eyebrow.

"Sounds like my kind of establishment," Alex replied, taking out a cigarette of his own and lighting it. After taking a drag, he remembered his coffee and took a sip without switching his cigarette to the other hand. He felt the dark, steaming espresso drink slide down the back of his throat and looked forward to the jitters he would soon feel.

"Yeah, it's pretty great," Elena continued. She adjusted the brim of her hat and took a gulp of her coffee which Alex figured must have gone cold by now. "We go a lot on Sundays, actually, because Clark's is the perfect place to go after a night of carousing. Plenty of greasy food to combat the previous night's damage." She smiled, and Alex tried not to look at her nose. "Plus a lot of kids hang out there Sunday afternoon to write papers or do homework. In fact, I've got a paper to do tomorrow on Godard's influence on the Nouvelle Vague movement, so I'll probably install myself at Clark's for a few hours. Feel free to join me if you'd like." Elena set her dark eyes on Alex waiting for a reply.

"You know what, I think I will!" The thought of spending Sunday afternoon in a hole-in-the-wall diner drinking bad coffee with other scruffy students seemed like the perfect way to kill the day, especially if there were a good chance of encountering Caroline. Alex started to feel that familiar tingling of the nerve endings that arose from the perfect combination of tobacco and caffeine. He was really enjoying himself now and even surprised himself by engaging the girls in some talk about their majors and future career plans, occasionally inserting some politically incorrect comments that amused them to no end. His mouth was moving in perfect synchronization with the conversation, but his brain wandered to another time and place, specifically to a booth in the back of a diner on a warm Sunday afternoon where a girl with brown hair served coffee.

The following day around 11:30 Alex opened his eyes and saw the morning seeping indecorously through the slits in the blinds and filling his room. He shut his eyes for another minute but knew that sleep would not come again, so he opened them and stared at the ceiling for a while. He wanted to think of nothing, but looking up at it with all its tiny grooves and bumpy imperfections made him think of pebbles he had seen on a trip to Portugal he had gone on with his parents before they got divorced. He had been young, maybe six or seven years old, and did not appreciate the exoticism of the locale or the peacefulness of the cities that by now had been destroyed by hungry rioters. He remembered walking beside his mother on the wet part of the beach between the ocean and the scorching sands and complaining about how bright the sun was in his eyes. The backdrop of ivory houses did nothing to abate the glare, and Alex had squinted painfully while asking again and again if they could go back to the umbrella-sheltered towel or the hotel. His mother had said nothing to him, and seemed intent on walking as far as the beach could go. She did not change her speed, grab her son's hand, or even look back to where Alex's father was sitting on a lawn chair with a book. He remembered now how annoyed he had been with his mother and with the sun, and how the only solace he took was in the little round pebbles digging into his feet because they shifted the crux of the pain from his eyes and burning shoulders to the bottoms of his feet. An uncomfortable step on the hard stones meant a flush of relief for his eyes, and the young Alex even began to seek out the spots that looked the roughest. They continued down the beach in this manner until his mother led him up a rocky hill to a low cliff. It was the highest point in the area, and the view of the sea was magnificent. You could just barely feel the salty spray on your face if you stood close enough to the edge. There was even a patch of soft dirt where some wildflowers mingled with weeds that Alex could sit in and play while his mother stared out over the expanse of water. She stayed like this for several minutes, and at one point he remembered seeing her throw something far out into the sea. He thought it was odd, but did not know at the time that he was solving the mystery of the missing wedding band. She still claimed it was the housekeeper, and Alex saw no good in challenging her. After a few more minutes on the cliff they walked back to the towels, and this time Alex's mother held his hand the whole way.

Those little pebbles had somehow found their way back to him, but this time from their place on his ceiling they gave him neither pleasure nor pain. Alex felt tried un-focusing his eyes so maybe he would see something new in the double vision, but while he was doing this his alarm sounded, and he remembered what he was going to do that day. He got right out of bed, took a shower, and avoided his roommate who was watching a sports discussion panel on TV in the living room. He wished he did not have to pass through the main room to go to the bathroom. In his bedroom, he got dressed and threw a bunch of books and notebooks that he would need to finish his homework into his backpack. He was fairly sure he was forgetting something, but had no idea what it could be so he just zipped it up and set it on his chair. He saw when he picked up his phone that there was a message from Elena saying she would not be able to make it to Clarks until way after the 1:00PM time they had originally agreed on. She said she was sorry but could not get out of bed yet due to a rough night the night before. Alex closed his phone and decided to go to the diner now anyway because Elena's presence was only an infinitesimal factor in his desire to sit there this afternoon. He put his phone in the front pocket of his backpack and started out the door, saying a quick goodbye to his couch-dwelling roommate.

Though the diner was two train stops away, Alex decided to walk because the day was warm once again. He lit a cigarette and walked slowly, enjoying the sight of the groups of undergrads walking happily in their pre-summer apparel. In this town during the despairing winters everyone kept hoping for early spring days like this one, and once they arrived, the people always prematurely shed their coats and boots for t-shirts and sandals. It was not really warm enough to do this, but it bolstered a state of mind that people depended on, and Alex noted that the only ones who actually looked out of place today were the hip kids who still sported loose beanies. He was glad he had lost his in December.

As he neared the diner the feeling of well-being wore away and his airways began to constrict ever so slightly. It was a feeling that Alex was not a stranger to, but that he hoped he could avoid by telling himself he was just going to get some breakfast and work on some homework. _No big deal._ Unfortunately the sight of Clark's' green awnings was enough to crumple up his faux relaxation and toss it into the overflowing trash bin on the corner. His heart pumped faster than he wanted it to as he reached for the door handle as he realized he had not planned anything to say to Caroline once he saw her. It was too late to turn around and think about it, though, and with a mixture of relief and dismay he saw someone else standing at the hostess booth, a girl from one of his political science classes who had those fake-looking blond highlights.

"Hi! How many?" she asked when he approached. He could not tell if she recognized him or not.

"One," he replied wondering if he looked like someone who would be part of a larger group.

"Cool, would you like a table or a booth?"

"Umm… is there a booth available?"

"Let me check." She adjusted her ponytail with one hand while running her finger down a list with another. "Hmm, I don't think so…." Then she looked up and scanned the room. "Oh, wait! Yeah, the corner one just opened up, and Ricky is just wiping it off. Do you want that one?"

Alex did not even look where she indicated. "Sure, sounds good."

"Great! Ok, follow me." She picked up a menu and led him all the way across the small, crowded restaurant to a booth by a window. He did not dare to look around at the other patrons as he walked, only straight ahead at the table she was taking him to. It had a plant hanging over it, one that Alex could not tell if it were real or fake, but he _did_ like the painting nailed to the back wall. It was of a young man sitting on a mountainside done in rich, dark colors, and had incredible detail in the flowers, shrubs, and trees that dotted the hill.

"Someone will be right over," the hostess said as she turned over a glass and took away the other set of silverware. Alex said a quick thank you, and as soon as she was gone he allowed himself to scan the restaurant. The sun shining on the wood-paneled walls cast a nice glow on all the diners, and Alex saw smiles everywhere as people bent over their plates to wolf down crumbly, yellow eggs and forkfuls of pancakes. He saw a few families, an older couple both reading newspapers, a group of boys Alex recognized as members of the intramural hockey team, and some other students studying solo. One Scandinavian-looking girl with long hair looked over at him from across the aisle and caught his eye. She waved, and Alex remembered she was in his literature class so he returned the greeting without making any effort to go say hello. He saw no sign of Caroline.

A busboy came up and offered him coffee, which Alex accepted gratefully before taking a notebook and a used copy of _Rip Van Winkle_ out of his backpack. As he arranged his materials on the table his backpack fell off the booth and spilled onto the floor, sending a pencil rolling across the aisle.

"Shit," he muttered and bent over to pick it up, looking up quickly to see if the blonde-haired girl had noticed. She was looking at him with a smile.

_Jesus_, he thought. He opened _Rip Van Winkle_ and decided not to look at her again. His eyes started over the words with difficulty, but soon he found a rhythm and even began to take interest in the strangeness of the story. As he read, he did not criticize or analyze; he just absorbed. This was how he preferred reading because it was how he thought the authors would have wanted their words to be read—organically, with wonder. That's how he imagined they were written. He did not want to believe that writers insert metaphors and motifs for purely literary reasons, so he did not tear sentences apart looking for them. He wanted to get lost in the overall impression of words and listen to them speak with their own voices.

"Have you gotten a chance to decide?"

Alex looked up and saw Caroline standing in front of him with a notepad and pen. Another pen was behind her ear and two more hung from her black apron. In the instant their faces registered each other she looked as startled as he felt.

"Oh, it's _you_," she said as her expression changed to one of amusement.

"It's me," was all Alex could muster.

"How've you been?"

The way she lowered her notepad and momentarily removed the invisible waitress mask she was wearing made Alex think she actually wanted to know. He thought he might tell her about how his classes were going or how he was thinking about Portugal this morning but did not know how to begin.

"I've been pretty good," he heard himself say more cheerily than he thought he would. "This weather's been great."

Caroline nodded right along with her eyes focused on him. "Yeah, it really has been," she agreed.

Alex knew he was not saying anything interesting and wondered why she seemed committed to the conversation.

"Though some people just take it too far," she continued. "I mean, just look." She pointed outside the window next to Alex at two girls wearing tank tops with sweatpants. "It's not that warm, people!"

"I agree! That's exactly what I was thinking on my way over here."

Caroline shook her head and sighed audibly. Then after a slight pause: "So, where are you coming from today?"

It took a second for Alex to realize she might be asking where his apartment was. "Oh, umm, just over on Wolcott and Evergreen." He was glad his place was not out of range of the diner, otherwise she would have known he came here for a reason besides convenience.

"Nice. You got a decent walk out of it."

"Yeah, I did."

"So, do you want food?" Once again she assumed her waitress identity, and Alex was sad to see her go.

"Definitely, I'm starving. Umm…" He looked at the menu and realized he had not so much as glanced at it before. "I'll have the breakfast combo."

"Ok, do you want sausage or bacon with it?"

"Bacon."

"And what kind of toast?"

"White? I don't know what kinds there are…"

"We have white, wheat, rye, sourdough—"

"Yeah, white's fine," he interrupted.

"Thanks," she said laughing. "I really didn't want to recite them all to you."

"Glad I can help. Though maybe I should have tested you."

She gave him a warning stare. "Don't anger me before I bring you your food. You don't know what I'm capable of."

Alex smiled. "If it were any day but Sunday I would take a risk."

"What's Sunday got to do with it?"

"I have no idea actually." He laughed and shook his head wondering at the complete disconnect between his brain and his mouth.

"Ok, then," she said turning away with a wry smile. Alex looked back down at his book and tried to turn the delight that had spread on his face back into studiousness. No easy task. Instead he gazed out the window, still holding his book, and wanted the sun to tip a little further down in the sky so its warm rays would touch him directly for a moment. He started to notice the coffee working through his bloodstream and was surprised at how awake and limber his limbs felt. His whole body seemed to be numbing ecstatically, like a patient in the throes of a thrilling anesthesia. Out the window amidst the baby green buds crowding on trees and the brave, new tulips peeking from the dirt Alex saw one of last year's leaves fall from a branch. It did not float, but rather deflated, letting go of the stand it had held since last fall when it had refused to go the way of its peers. But now this relic of last autumn was being crowded out, forced to vacate by fresher occupants. Its descent was its white flag. Alex watched it touch the ground and decided this happiness he was feeling now could not last.

Caroline came back over and set a huge white plate full of hot breakfast essentials on the table in front of him.

"Voila. The best Clark's has to offer, all on one plate."

"Looks great," he said eyeing the platter as she set down some maple syrup and a dish of packaged butter.

"Yep, pretty unbeatable. But actually I think our Fiesta Platter is better. I like a little kick in the morning, and that green salsa will do it."

"Hmm…" he said putting a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. They were unremarkable, but still tasty, and he thought of the few times his mom tried to make pancakes for him when he was younger. He had always finished his plate because she made them, but he was careful to douse them in syrup so he wouldn't notice their mediocrity. "I've never really had a Mexican breakfast."

"What? Really? Oh, man, there's this place called Mi Unico that you _have_ to try. It's on Damen, and it's actually in the back of a Latin American supermarket, so a lot of people don't even know it exists, but it's seriously the best, most authentic Mexican/Latin food you can get in this city."

"Really? Wow, sounds cool." Alex took a bite of his eggs. They were also average.

"It is." Caroline's momentum stopped, and she looked at the ground.

"Well you should show it to me sometime," Alex said. He was shocked he uttered those words and half wished he could take them back, but they were there, now, on the table next to his Diner Combo and half-empty coffee mug.

"Definitely. I haven't been there in a while so I'd love to go again. I hope you speak a little Spanish, though, because there's no English menu."

"Shouldn't be a problem," Alex lied. "I've taken some Spanish before." His brain automatically started counting up until it strained to remember what comes after _quince_.

"Good. I'll need you there because I know zero _español_. French is my area of expertise. When are you free?" Her notepad was away in her apron pocket, and her waitress mask was down.

"For breakfast? Umm…"

"Or dinner, you know, if that's easier," she offered.

"Probably. I have class in the mornings."

"I do, too. Though I would not mind missing pre-calculus for some _Chilaquiles_," she added with a smile.

Alex admired the animation in her features as she talked. "Well I can't really miss the classes I have first, so let's try for dinner sometime."

"Great, just let me know what day of the week works best for you, and we'll coordinate. And actually right now I should really be working." She made a face. "Tips, you know? Gotta make that cash! But ok, I don't know if we ever exchanged numbers, so here's mine." She grabbed a napkin and quickly wrote ten black digits on it with the pen that was behind her ear. "Alright, now I'll let you enjoy your food in peace, and I'll be back later with your check. Take your time, though, no rush."

Alex watched her dash over to another table, and her waitress mask snapped back into place. Then he cut into the doughy stack of pancakes and layered it with some bacon before putting the huge bite into his mouth. As he chewed he decided that maybe this breakfast really was something special, and wondered why more people did not know about Clark's.

The next afternoon when his 3:30 course got out Alex was sitting near the lake with a cigarette in his hand and his backpack lolling at his side while he tried to regroup from a full day of aggravating classes. The day was in stark contrast with the one before and boasted gray skies and a damp wind. The waves were calm, but did nothing to alleviate the visceral irritation that consumed him. He wanted to forget about reading assignments, papers, and that kid in class who raises his hand and consistently contributes the most meaningless points to discussion. He wanted to sit with Caroline at dinner and watch her babble on about anything while the sun sets and tosses a golden glow on her profile as its parting gift. He could have this, he decided, and got out his phone to text her about the dinner she suggested.

It was not until four hours later when he was in his kitchen heating up some frozen taquitos for dinner that he felt his pocket vibrate. His roommate was on the couch watching a sitcom eating a fresh pizza that he had not even offered to share, and Alex wished he would vacate the common space for once so it would feel more like home. Once the microwave _dinged_ to signal the readiness of his dinner, he grabbed the plate out of the microwave and took it to his room while his roommate laughed loudly at something on television. Once he set his plate on his desk and got settled in his chair he took out his phone and saw it was Caroline finally responding to his earlier message.

"Thursday is perfect. Want to say 6:30?" he read. Alex responded in the affirmative and closed his phone so he could start on his dinner. Parts of it were still cold, while other parts scalded his tongue, but it was nourishment. _Sort of. At least it filled up his stomach._ He ate quickly because he needed to get to the library to find some books he would need for the paper that was due in a week. He could have used internet sources like many of his classmates but was under the impression that something about them was impermanent, like the information they provided would somehow evaporate if the power went out. He wanted to refer to something he could touch, something he knew would be there in the morning, so he wiped his crumbs into the garbage can and gulped down some soda before picking up his backpack again and heading outside. He walked the entire way, a good eight blocks, with his headphones on listening to the songs he was most recently obsessed with so he would not feel the cold that permeated the campus. It came from the lake, Alex knew, and it was trying to stunt the hopes of the undergrads in light sweaters and t-shirts. As his sneakers pounded the sidewalks, he was glad he had his music because with his ears were in use, the rest of his body was pleasantly numb. He saw the library lights like a beacon and anticipated the warmth of his favorite, hidden chair in the corner on the sixth floor. On his way inside he grabbed a newspaper and folded it up before jogging up the stairs to claim his spot before someone else did.

When he arrived no one was there. Alex set his backpack on the ground and threw the newspaper on the chair so he could remove his jacket and get comfortable. The folded paper opened as it fell, and Alex saw the front cover was a photo of a thousand red flags held high by two thousand joyous hands. It was no secret anymore that Europe was crying out for a new republic. Alex folded it back up for when he needed a break and took out the books he would need to resume work on the assignment. Once he had them arranged in the most efficient way he settled in to the work and was glad to be reading about classical tragedies in a place far away from his apartment and cell phone reception.

**Chapter Six**

Alex stood on the corner of Damen and Magnolia staring at the yellow awning of the tiny Mexican supermarket that supposedly had the best Latin food in town. Even though "Mi Unico" was written in unadorned royal blue typeface across the front, Alex wondered if he were in the right place. _Even the coin Laundromat next door is more brightly lit than this place._ Nevertheless he leaned against a lamppost to have a cigarette while he waited for Caroline to arrive until it occurred to him that she may not like to see him smoking, and for a second he considered throwing it out, but he really wanted it. Anyhow, she would probably be late enough for him to finish. He was right, and she did not come hurrying down the sidewalk until ten minutes after he stomped out the smoldering remnants with his foot. It was almost time enough for him to start a new one when he finally glimpsed her small, coat-clad figure striding quickly down the block.

"Sorry!" she called when she was within earshot. She half ran, half walked the remaining distance, and her cheeks were flushed from the harsh wind that seemed to come from every direction on this street. Despite her agitation she was beaming when she approached. "Hi!" she said breathlessly as she finally came to a stop in front of him. "What's up?"

"Not a whole lot," he said marveling at the way she seemed to be in motion even as she stood still.

"You hungry?" she asked brightly. "Because you better be. This place will blow your mind."

"We'll see about that. To be honest it looks like nothing." He looked again at the plain brick façade.

She laughed. "Come on," and opened the front door for him. Once inside he let her lead the way through a labyrinth of beans: canned, dried, red, black, green; chili peppers of every color and intensity, and rice in one pound bags, two pound bags, and bulk sizes. The shelves were stocked to capacity and in such a state of disarray that Alex could not tell which price belonged to which item. A black-and-white dog snoozed in the corner by the fruit juice section. Finally they came to the back of the store where the restaurant was. All three tables of it. The menu was bright on the back wall and had pictures of every item to help the non-Spanish-speaking customers which Alex guessed were few. Caroline bounced a little on her tiptoes as she read the menu.

"Hmm I really liked what I had last time, but I can't remember what it was! Was it the _Tamal con Mole_? Yeah, I think that was it. With _poblano_ and cheese. Sounds right." She looked at Alex. "Do you see anything that looks intriguing?"

Alex could not read 80% of the words, and even the pictures were not much help because they all looked like mounds of brown mush topped with sour cream with tortillas on the side. He was tempted to order the same thing as Caroline but did not want to appear opinion-less. "I'm going to get the Cuban sandwich," he said finally.

"Good choice," Caroline said after eyeing the description. She walked up to the counter, ordered her food and a hot tea, and started looking for a table. Alex ordered his food and started to take out money before being instructed in broken English that he should pay at the end. _That's why Caroline made no effort to pay for her meal; not because she expected me to take care of it as if this were a date or something._ He turned and went to the table she had chosen near the back wall.

"So," she began as they waited for the food to arrive. "What do you do in the city besides school? And I don't necessarily mean 'what do you for work,' just in general." She waited with her large, clear eyes fixed on him, and Alex could not tell if he felt pressured or at ease.

"I read a lot," he responded, wondering how the words sounded to her ears. The meaning was true enough, but the phrase had no impressive rhythm, no sonority, and no sheen. It was flat and dull, like the outside of this restaurant, and Alex immediately wanted to have said it differently.

"Oh, yeah?" Caroline pressed on. "What do you read?"

"Everything. Russian classics, modern Japanese fiction, some sci-fi. As long as it keeps me entertained and puts me in a different world for a little bit."

"What's wrong with this world?"

That was not the follow-up question Alex was expecting. He had been trying to recall a couple example books from each of those genres and the characters and plot lines that went with them, struggling to knit together some common themes that he could talk about with confidence, but what a waste. Konstantin Levin did not matter, Eliot Rosewater did not matter, and neither did Alceste or Salvador Paradise.

"It's just never what I think it should be," he heard himself saying. "I think maybe I was born too late, and I've missed the pinnacle of beauty in the world. Everywhere I go I just see decay." he concluded and looked at a plastic salt shaker sitting between them on the table. Everything about it reaffirmed what he had just said.

"You don't think there's anything we can do?"

Alex was aware that Caroline was still looking directly at him as she said this, but he did not meet her gaze. He felt like staring at the salt shaker some more and feeling irritated about the world.

"What about art?" she continued. "People are still painting, they're still making music, and they're still writing books. How can you say there is no beauty being added to the world?"

"Have you seen some of the 'art' people are making?" Alex suddenly found momentum and looked at Caroline. "These 'artists' crank out laughable paintings that sell for inflated prices to urbanites who use them as backdrops to their silly domestic dramas. They have no idea what the paintings even mean, which is actually a good thing, because they mean nothing. Then there's movies. Nothing but remakes. And music? It all sounds the same. Complacent and synthetic."

Caroline was still looking at him intently and seemed to be reviewing each syllable he said. Alex wondered what sort of perfectly off-center response she was formulating inside her lovely head. He realized he did not particularly want to hear it and would rather look at her in silence as she thought about things. She opened her mouth to speak, but then looked up at the waiter who was walking over with two huge steaming plates. Caroline smiled at the young waiter in his somehow impeccably white t-shirt as he carefully set down each dish. He had the shadow of a mustache above his lip, and his face was shining with perspiration.

"Thank you!" she said cheerfully eyeing her food.

"Thanks," Alex echoed.

"You're welcome." The waiter wiped his hands on his black apron. "Anything else?"

"No, that should do it for now!"

The waiter nodded and went quickly back behind the counter. Caroline unwrapped her fork and knife from the napkin and cut a huge chunk of tamale. She swirled it around in the _mole_ sauce before putting the whole thing in her mouth and chewing with relish.

"Oh my god," she said with her mouth full. "This is incredible." She started sawing off another bite as Alex lifted the Cuban sandwich sitting on his plate next to a pile of French fries and looked for the best way to bite into it. When he figured it out a good angle, the combination of ham, cheese, pickles, and mustard that hit his tongue was perfect, and he nodded, silently congratulating Caroline on her good find. They hungrily took a few more bites in silence while a Latino couple with three small children walked in and went up to the counter. The oldest girl who looked no more than seven years old scooped up the little boy and then started speaking in rapid Spanish to her other brother who stood listening to her with wide eyes. She then carried the toddler with great effort over to one of the larger tables and set him down while her parents ordered food at the counter. The other little boy sat down at the table and kicked his khaki-clad legs in the space where his feet would not touch the ground.

"I still think you're wrong," Caroline said, and Alex watched the comfortable silence crack open.

"About what?" He popped some fries into his mouth.

"About the declining beauty in the world."

"Mmmm?"

"Yeah. In fact, I could show you if you want," she said, her eyes smarting with a strange energy.

"Where do I have to go?"

"Do you mind train travel?"

Alex considered. "Depends on how long the trip is."

"Only about two hours."

"That doesn't sound bad."

"It's not. You'll see. Do you want to go after this?"

"You mean, right after dinner?"

"Yeah, why not?"

Alex could not really think of a reason. He had class tomorrow, but suddenly those lectures he usually tried never to miss seemed altogether unnecessary. He could not remember one bit of information that had been relayed to him this past week in class and figured the secrets of humanity would not be on the professors' agendas for tomorrow, so he decided to go along.

"Alright, yeah. Should I ask where you're taking me?"

Caroline scooped a forkful of rice into her mouth. "Do you want to know? Or do you want to be surprised?"

Alex did want to know. He desperately wanted to find out where Caroline had supposedly found beauty, but he also wanted to let her show him for the first time and keep him in wonder up until then. He wanted those lights to stay in her eyes awhile longer.

"I'll wait," he said and smiled.

"Good." She seemed pleased. "Ok, after this we can each go home and throw some things in a bag before we go. I know a train leaves at 8:30, so we'll have time."

Alex did not know if they would have time because he knew how long it took to get to the train station, but he wanted to trust Caroline so he agreed.

"Cool. What should I bring?"

"Just some basic overnight things and a jacket. Nothing special."

"Alright, sounds easy enough."

They finished what they could of their large meals, paid (separately), and then put their coats on, suddenly feeling the pressure of a goal in front of them. Outside on the rapidly darkening sidewalks they stood facing each other like two thieving accomplices and said 'so long,' with plans to meet again in half an hour at the train.

Alex pushed the button to turn the heat lamp back on. He and Caroline were standing under a shelter on the platform with their bags while the night threw gusts of cold wind at them from all directions, even from straight above. It had been almost ten minutes, and Alex wondered if the train was delayed. He had the sinking feeling they would miss the connection to the cross-country train they were trying to catch at 8:30, but Caroline looked calm. _Cold, but calm._ Her lips were parted slightly, sending tiny puffs of white air into the atmosphere each time she breathed, and she wore a strangely shaped knit hat that covered most of her short brown hair. Alex wondered where her thoughts were going as she stood shivering next to him.

An unintelligible announcement crackled over the loudspeakers, and within minutes a train whirred into the station with a flourish of yellow and gray. They boarded that train, rode it to the middle of the line, then got on another, where they would be for two more hours. _Even in the harsh light of the train car she looks wonderful_, Alex thought as he stole a glance in her direction, knowing what a dangerous move it was considering how close they were to each other on the cramped bench seats. He leaned his head back against the vinyl cushion while Caroline kept her eyes fixed out the window. The time for conversation had ended somewhere between the first train and the second, and now Alex was content to let the groaning flywheels and pistons provide the soundtrack of the ride. Close to half past ten the train finally rolled to a stop in a town called Tryton, and Caroline finally broke her gaze from the window.

"We're here," she said turning to him. Her eyes seemed to search his face, but Alex did not know what she was looking for so he just started to unload their bags from the luggage compartment. Hers was much lighter than his and caught him off guard so much that he almost dropped it and was left clinging only to the black nylon strap, much to Caroline's amusement. She threw a few good-natured insults his way, and Alex's face and neck grew warm with something in between embarrassment and joy. Out of the mostly deserted station and down the gravel shoulder of a silent road they walked, lugging their bags on their shoulders. Somehow the wind here was quieter, and Alex wanted to stop walking and kiss her frozen lips right on this nameless road. Maybe she would drop her bags and lean slowly against his chest while he put his forehead down to meet hers, and a car would drive by with headlamps lighting up their bundled embrace. Maybe that car would be the only witness to this hesitant union, this inevitable yielding. Maybe, but she was walking too quickly now. She was about five or six steps ahead of him, and it would be too much to run and catch her. Alex quickened his pace just enough not to lose ground.

Step after step, right then left, until a distant glow that had been a spectral dot in the darkness expanded and multiplied until it turned into little lanterns lighting the walkway of an expansive brick house. They approached it, and Alex wondered if the unkempt flower beds were the doings of a rough winter or if they were always like that. He followed Caroline up the porch steps and waited while she turned a key in the front door.

"No one's home," she said, reiterating what the blackness inside had already told them. Caroline opened the door, and a rush of air not much warmer than that outside wrapped itself around Alex's body and escaped behind him. He could tell by the scent of the room that this was the kind of house where people burned candles, raised dogs, and cooked real meals often. It sighed with weary contentment as they walked in and set their bags on the sofa.

"Is this where you grew up?" he asked as he tried to get his eyes to adjust to the dark.

Caroline nodded, but still did not turn on any lights. "Yep, my parents built this house," she said looking anew at the details of the room that Alex could not see. "I've been here since I was four, and it's been my home since then."

"You must really love this place."

"It's nice. I like to be away from it, too, though." She did not elaborate on that statement but instead grabbed her bags again and said: "Here, let's go upstairs where it's warmer. The drafts in the winter are unbearable."

Alex made like a blind man up the carpeted stairs, carefully clinging to the railing and testing each step before he took it. He wondered how he was supposed to find beauty if he couldn't see anything at all. But then a rectangle of impossible brightness cut through the dark as Caroline flipped a switch and lit the room, and he saw the warm colors of the walls melt with the dark wood paneling that lined the ceiling, the floors, and the door frames. It was cozy, he admitted that much, but it was nothing he would consider beautiful. Caroline threw her bags onto an ottoman in the corner and did not bother to pick up the one that bounced back on the floor. She turned and looked right at him as if he were the one who should decide what comes next.

Alex scanned the room in an exaggerated way just to be _doing_ something. A four-poster bed with a light-blue covering sat under a large picture window, and above it black and white photographs of tires and fences decorated the wall. Piles of fashion magazines spilled over in a corner next to an overstuffed bookshelf and another ottoman containing stuffed animals. The dresser, night table, and full-length mirror were of the same rich wood as the paneling, and Alex guessed they were all antiques. "This is a really nice room," he commented.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "It's ok. It's my bedroom, the same one I've had all my life. Well, since I was four, obviously. I chose it because it was the biggest, but it's so oddly shaped that I can barely do much else with the furniture. I tried so many times over the years to rearrange it, but nothing made sense for any length of time, and I always had to come back to this. My brother got the better deal. He's across the hall in a smaller room, but it's square. Infinite possibilities. He just keeps it like it is, though."

Alex took another look around the notably oblong room and nodded. "Infuriating," he said, only half agreeing with her.

"Incredibly. Well, feel free to make yourself at home. We'll be in for the night until tomorrow when I'll show you what I want to show you." The corners of her small mouth curled up like a nymph.

"Ok, awesome." Alex set his bag down and wanted to go look at what she had on her bookshelf.

"Ooh! I wonder if my parents have any unopened wine. I'll go check." She started to head out the door but then whirled back around. "Unless you don't want any? I forgot to ask. Do you want wine?"

She could have asked him if he wanted lighter fluid, he would have said yes to those eyes.

"Of course I'll have wine."

"Great." She smiled and disappeared down the stairs. Alex walked over the other window, the one that was not over Caroline's bed and put his hands on the sill. He saw a frost-covered roof and beyond that a few trees. They looked like they were huddling together to conceal the big silver moon that was hanging low just behind them in the flawless sky. Then he noticed the stars. He never got to see them when he was in the City because of all the light pollution, but he did not actually know he missed them until he saw them here, fanning themselves out like glittering drops of water on a dark windowpane. He looked at them and wondered at the sheer number. There were tiny ones like the heads of pins and larger ones like brushstrokes. At first they appeared to be in no order but as he continued to stare out into the sky he saw paths and channels, mounds and valleys. He wanted to see constellations, too, but did not know any.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Alex turned his head and saw Caroline coming across the room with two bottles of red wine and a pair of coffee mugs. She handed him one that had a drawing of an autumn forest on it and kept the one that said 'Hillel: keep it rolling.' Then she expertly uncorked the wine and began pouring it in the mugs.

"Are you Jewish?" he asked after they toasted and took their first sips.

She cocked her head to one side and looked at him. "No. Why do you ask that?"

He motioned to her mug.

"So? It was free at Welcome Week." She took a large gulp from the mug. "Mmmm. This is really good."

He decided that was the end of that, and matched her drink with an equally big one. The wine was dry but sweet and left a smoky aftertaste on his tongue. He looked at the bottle to determine if it were a good wine or not, but realized he had no clue about brands of wines. Looking elsewhere he caught sight of a large record player in the corner.

"Wow, impressive. How long have you been into vinyl?" He walked over to the record player and started flipping through some albums sitting snugly in a small cardboard box.

"Oh, not long, I guess. I got that last summer on a whim because I watched 'High Fidelity' and thought John Cusack was a really pathetically great character. I felt like I should know more about records since I know a lot about music, but records as a hobby are really time consuming and expensive. I just couldn't sustain it."

"You've got some decent stuff in here, though," he said pulling out an Elliot Smith album he didn't recognize.

"Thanks, I want to get more. Maybe I'll pick this up again in the summer once I have a job."

He felt her eyes on him as he rifled through her collection a second time. _What were the chances this girl had Cat Power followed immediately by Biggie Smalls and then French __yé-yé__?_ He wanted to show her his music library so she could see how much they had in common. Finally he chose a mellow folk album that would set the right mood. "How about we put this on?"

She looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. "Sure. I have to figure out how to do this again. It's been awhile…" She began fiddling awkwardly with the needle and various other buttons until finally the record began to spin and a simple, sweet melody crackled out and filled the room. "Whew! I'm so glad there are i-pods now." Alex wished she hadn't said that, but he clinked mugs with her just the same, and they both took a couple generous sips. Caroline walked over and lowered the lights a few notches. "So the neighbors don't think anything suspicious is happening," she explained and then sat down cross-legged on the carpeting. Alex joined her, and they emptied their mugs in silence, just listening to the music and letting the moonlight help their eyes adjust to the dark.

"Their first album is way better," Alex said after a while.

Caroline just nodded in a way that either meant 'I agree with you' or 'I'm acknowledging that you spoke,' and then continued to look at the wall with unfocused eyes. Alex wondered if she were thinking about a past love. He thought this would be a good time to think about old loves, but he didn't have any old loves to think about.

"Did you ever tell ghost stories at sleepovers when you were younger?" Caroline asked suddenly. And she started telling him a story about a babysitter and a clown statue that—surprise!—isn't really a statue at all. He had heard a variation of the story somewhere before but decided not to tell her that. Instead he told her one of his own, one that he had read about a mother and a daughter who go into a hotel and descend into madness. He liked watching her eyes widen as he talked and hoped he might do a good enough job that she would want to be closer to him. _An inch, or two, give me something._ But she stayed where she was, and they kept talking until the wine was gone and the moon was no longer visible outside the window.

**Chapter seven**

It was hard to say who initiated the first kiss. Had he done it? Had it been Caroline? Or perhaps the bottle of Cabernet-Sauvignon that was now overturned and empty on the ground? Alex did not know, but he liked the feel of Caroline's bare arms in his as the first rays of the morning snuck through the window above the bed. He closed his eyes again and pulled the bed cover further over his shoulder wondering at what point they had decided to pull the blankets off the bed and sleep next to each other on the ground. The carpet was soft, but the bed would have been a better choice. Alex's back began to ache in several places, but he dared not move for fear of waking her. She was only wearing a tank top and what seemed like a very small pair of shorts from what his legs could deduce by touching hers. He was not wearing any shirt and only boxers down below. A dreadful chill seized him for a second when he thought about the possibility that they may have slept together, and he did not remember it. His back ached more intensely as he hoped to the ceiling that it not be true.

A few uncomfortable minutes passed in this way, and Alex wanted her to wake up and dispel his suspicions. He did not want to nudge her, though. It had to happen on its own. With eyes wide and dry he stared upward because there was nowhere else he could look. In the absence of any visual stimulation his thoughts turned to his own bedroom, the one he had since childhood. It was always neat, the way he liked it, with posters arranged just so on the walls. Once in his freshman year of high school he got three new ones: one German movie poster, one of a superhero, and one of a band he had been really into at the time. It had taken him at least two hours to figure out where on his four walls they should go, and at what heights and lengths apart. Even the poster strips he had taken enormous care to place where they would not be likely to rip the delicate paper. Once all this work was finished he stood and admired them for close to a quarter of an hour and had never moved them since.

Bright green geometric shapes fanned themselves out in front of his eyes for a few minutes, and then he looked around at Caroline's walls guessing she had taken far less care putting up her decorations. Fashion cut-outs, postcards, album covers, and even a photo of Nelson Mandela were scattered all over the walls in no pattern that Alex could figure out. The corners of some were bent over, and a few of them overlapped, as if she had changed her mind so quickly that she didn't even have time to take one down before she put up the other. He pictured her doing all the decorating at once, in a frenzy of activity. She did not seem like a girl who spent years creating anything.

Then Caroline stirred ever so slightly, and Alex looked down as far as he could without moving his head to see if she were actually awake. His eye sockets began to ache from the strain, though, and he gave up. He noticed her hair rubbing against his neck in a new way and realized she was looking up at him. He met her gaze, but she looked down immediately.

"Good morning," she said in a small voice that broke in the middle.

"Morning."

"Wow, I need aspirin. I haven't had that much wine in a while!" She was still looking down.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, I have, but not in such a short span of time. My head is pounding. It feels like a metronome is beating in my temples. Man, sometimes I feel like drinking isn't worth it because the morning after is so terrible." She buried her head a little further into the crook of his arm.

"Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No, I have painkillers around here somewhere." She sat up abruptly and smoothed her hair as she looked around the room. Her nearly naked chest exposed a small tattoo drawn on the inner side of her left shoulder. The design was obscure, but Alex thought he recognized it from somewhere. Finally she got up, tugged on the hem of her tank top to bring it further down over her abdomen and walked over to her dresser where she pulled out a bottle of brand-name painkillers. Reaching for a cup of water she downed several pills, the exact number of which Alex could not be sure. Then she held out the bottle to him. "Want some?"

"Just two, thanks."

She placed two red pills in his hand before putting the bottle away where it had come from. "Now all we need is breakfast, and we'll be good to go. Do you mind if I shower first, though? I feel really grungy."

Alex said he did not mind and managed to relax enough while she was in the bathroom to catch a few more minutes of sleep. The next time he opened his eyes he saw Caroline standing by the mirror wearing the same shorts she wore to bed plus an oversized sweater. He stared at her smooth legs while she applied some sort of lotion to her face, and when she finished she turned around.

"Ah, you're awake again, good."

Alex noticed that she must have already blow-dried her hair because it looked light and smooth. He put his arms behind his head. "Yep. So what's this about breakfast?"

"We have to cook it. That's what about it." She knelt down in front of him. "I hope you're not intimidated by my breakfast skills. I _never_ miss this meal, so I've gotten pretty damn good at it."

"Intimidated? Ha. I'm a man. Do your worst."

Caroline shoved him. "Ok, _man_, come on. Let's go downstairs. I'm getting hungry."

"Do I get any say in what we cook?" Alex asked pulling himself from off the floor.

"No, not really."

"Ok, I was just wondering."

Alex swirled another forkful of golden French toast in the syrup swimming on his plate before putting the whole thing in his mouth. He chewed heartily because he was so grateful to have carbs in his stomach after a night of drinking. He looked across the table at Caroline who was obviously enjoying her food, too. They had spent almost forty-five minutes preparing French toast with special Challah bread, eggs smothered in hollandaise sauce (Caroline's secret recipe), and maple bacon. Caroline had also insisted they use some of her parents' peppery vodka to make a pitcher of Bloody Marys, which they now gulped down along with coffee to compliment the meal. Alex picked up another piece of bacon and bit into it decisively. It had been a long time since he had had such fun in a kitchen. Caroline was every bit as good a cook as she boasted to be, but what most surprised him was her ability to be everywhere at once. With one hand she cracked an egg while the other was busy stirring the sauce. A third seemed to come from somewhere and flip the French toast sizzling in the pan, and all the while she talked or sang little bits of whatever songs happened to be in her head. Alex could not stop the smile that plastered itself on his face and wondered if she ever tired herself out.

As she ate her food she was quiet, though, and they both stared out the glass doors that led to the backyard. The morning was still harsh from this angle and reflected light into their eyes from the dew still lolling on the grass. Further out, the forest stood still and regal, challenging anything under its gaze to move out of turn. Alex washed down another bite of French toast with his Bloody Mary then looked at Caroline.

"So what are you going to show me today?"

She took a gulp of coffee and then followed it immediately with a drink from her Bloody Mary before answering. "I figure we will walk down some back roads because they're my favorite places to be in the world. Spring isn't the most ideal time to do this, but it's ok because most of the ground should still be frozen. We won't get our shoes too muddy." She paused and looked directly into his eyes before adding: "Of course, I don't care about mud. I'm used to it. I'm just looking out for you."

"No big deal. You know, I've seen mud before. I grew up near a river." He wondered what kind of challenge she seemed to be gearing up for.

"Just making sure," she said before turning back to her meal.

Alex finished everything on his plate, but Caroline left the crusts of her French toast and most of her bacon untouched.

"You want to go now?" she asked standing up.

Alex figured that was less of a question than it was a direction. He looked at the dishes spread across the table and guessed she had no intention of doing them before they left for outside, so he set his paper napkin on top of his plate and went with her to get his coat and shoes.

Outside the early afternoon sun was blinding, and Alex put his hand up to shield his eyes from its punishing rays. Caroline told him that where they were going he would not need to worry about that. As they got further and further from Caroline's looming house, Alex realized how much the air had warmed since the night before. Now it was close to fifty-five degrees, Alex figured, and the breeze pillowed around them as they walked down a winding road surrounded on both sides by nondescript deciduous trees and Caroline's neighbor's hidden estates. Each house seemed larger and more intimidating than the next, like they were guarding the lands of their fathers from the thieving eyes of the others. Red brick, white stone, polished wood—they had windows for eyes and bolted door mouths designed to keep the families' hushed words from escaping. Around a final bend Alex saw a fence rising from the ground and running off towards the woods in different directions that his eyes could not follow. He could not figure out what the fence was for, as it seemed to enclose only an incalculable amount of sundrenched pastureland and nothing else.

"Is that where you're taking me?" Alex pointed toward the forest. It was thick, but still mostly brown from the winter's hand.

"For starters," Caroline replied. She did not take her eyes off the path. "Hear that?"

"What?"

"The first swallows of the season." She was grinning like a child who sees her birthday cake for the first time. Coming to a stop in front of the fence, she tucked her hair behind her ears, and Alex watched her scale it expertly, landing neatly on the other side. His own feet were uncertain, and it was not clear to him if he should put his left or right foot on the fence first. Would his leg reach all the way over? He did not want Caroline to think he had not done a simple thing like climb a fence before, but in all truth he could not remember the last time he had done it.

"It's ok," she encouraged him. "I've done this a million times, but I know it's not intuitive. Just put your left foot on the lower rung. Yeah, right there. Then hoist yourself up and swing your other leg over the top."

Alex focused, his hands gripping the splintering wood, and after one false start he cleared it. Caroline nodded with what he hoped was approval, and then they walked on. He prayed there would not be any more fences.

"This is where we used to go every day, my brother and I. See that hunting post?" She pointed up to a rickety wooden structure nearly obscured by branches. "Once my brother Max climbed all the way to the top and then got too scared to come down. I had to run back to the house and get my dad to help. By the time we got back it was almost dark, and Max was still up there with tears streaming down his face. He wasn't making a sound, but I knew he was petrified. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my entire life. I just kept thinking about Max up there, shivering in the dark surrounded by wild animals and weird sounds. I couldn't bear it."

"Wow, that would be pretty scary. But what did you think was in the forest? Mountain Lions? Flying Chupacabras?

"Don't make fun!" There _are_ coyotes in these woods."

"None that climb trees, I bet.

"You don't know that."

Alex realized that she was right; he didn't, so he added nothing.

They walked in silence further across the field that teemed with life every step of the way. Insects, mice, and birds went about their afternoon tasks, scuttling by Alex's feet or hopping up on hearty stalks of grass for a better view of the land. He watched with pure enjoyment for a few minutes before his mind returned to him. Even as it did, though, he could not find any traces of uneasiness huddling in the corners. For the next few seconds he flipped frantically through snapshots of his life to locate the disquieting thought that he knew must be lurking behind all this innocent joy, but could not find it. Reluctantly he turned his attention back outward and fell in step behind Caroline as they neared an opening in the forest. She ducked under a branch and stepped gingerly around a patch of mud that threatened to yank Alex's shoes right from his feet. Through the cave of underbrush Alex kept his eyes firmly on Caroline's bright blue windbreaker as the smell of raw earth climbed into his nostrils, and the ground squished beneath his feet. A smattering of sunlight made kaleidoscopic patterns through the trellis-like ceiling of branches, and Alex tried to rearrange them into rows with his mind.

The whole walk Caroline told stories, or rather tid-bits of stories, like a Cliffnotes synopsis. She told one, was quiet, then went on to the next. They were never complete, and they were never related, but somehow on this broken, winding trail they seemed right. Every once in a while Caroline would slow down, look back at Alex to chide him for not keeping up, and then continue. His hand felt pulled toward hers like it was powered by the very magnetism of the earth, but he did not know if he should reach out. Plus she was walking in front of him, and it wouldn't be smooth or efficient to walk like that holding hands. He decided to ignore the pull for now.

After some time it occurred to Alex that all of Caroline's non sequiturs had something in common. They forewent any mention of the events of the preceding night—the kiss, the way they held each other in the dark, the near-nakedness of their bodies pressed together. Alex did not know if she were purposely avoiding the subject or simply not thinking about it. _Perhaps she wanted to forget it? Or maybe she just did not know what to say about it?_ He found himself in the latter category.

Soon, though, he glimpsed a small clearing in the otherwise impenetrable bramble. Adding to the snapping twigs beneath their feet was a steady rushing sound that Alex guessed had to be water. A dozen more feet, and his suspicions were confirmed. An opening in the thicket revealed a steep drop-off where the trail fell into a swift creek down below. It did not appear terribly deep, but he still did not plan on going close enough to the edge to find out. Caroline had other ideas.

"Perfect!" She took off her canvas backpack, set it on a fallen tree, and dug out a blanket that appeared to have once been hunter green, but now settled into the pea-soup tones of old age. Caroline spread it over the scrub grass on a strip of land that jutted out over the river. Her movements were hurried but clean, and Alex liked how her mouth set so firmly when she was focusing intently on something. Finally when she had arranged the blanket to her satisfaction she sat down.

"Alex," she said.

He loved to hear his name.

"Sit down. What are you doing?"

"I was just thinking," he said settling himself somewhat uncomfortably on the blanketed grass. He shifted slightly to avoid a stick that was jabbing into his upper thigh.

"About what?"

"Just how little the rest of the world's fucked-up politics seem to matter out here." He looked at the trees, which sprouted leaves whether or not the Portuguese were rioting in the streets, and at the water, which bubbled over smooth rocks whether or not Italy's prime minister was assassinated.

"I guess that's why I like coming out here. I can feel so far from everything and everybody, but I know in a matter of minutes I can be back again if I need to. It's like going to Rwanda but staying at a resort town like…what's that one called? That lake..."

"Lake Kiva?"

"Yes! It's like going to Africa and staying at Lake Kiva. You're somewhere exotic, but you're not so far out that you have to start worrying about inter-tribe violence or starving to death on the plains. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it does."

"So, do you think it's beautiful?"

"I think it's beautiful."

A few rays of light bounced off the surface of the water all the way up to Caroline's face and lit up her cheeks. Her eyes were bright and lively, and a few strands of her hair ruffled in the breeze. Alex lifted his hand gingerly to tuck them back into place and then craned his neck to kiss her. She leaned in and parted her lips slightly, so he knew it was ok. He moved his hand to the back of her neck as he kissed her, and she stayed right where she was, letting him move as he pleased.

Then she jerked her head back. She was staring at something behind him with such intensity that a litany of horrors paraded through Alex's brain.

"What is that?" she asked. She pulled further away and took back her hands, which up until now had been resting on his knees. "What _is_ that?" She got up from the ground, and Alex turned to see where she was going. The trees looked different now that the sun was sinking to the west, and all the moss and scrub grass assumed a deeper green than they had before, a color closer now to Dante's velvet. Alex looked but could not see the object of interest because Caroline was blocking the way as she tramped away in her boots. Finally he glimpsed something white standing in wildly inappropriate contrast with the shadowy colors of the woods. He got up and walked the fifty or so yards to where she stood in front of a porcelain bathtub freestanding in a grove of Sycamore Maples, a Boxwood Elder, and some bushes that Alex could not identify.

"What is this _doing_ here?" she cried with a sweeping gesture. "It's ruining everything!"

Alex eyed the tub, which seemed to be smiling at them in strange way. It was pure white with no noticeable stains and only a few flecks of dirt at the bottom. It even had bronze claw feet that anchored it into the earth beneath the soggy leaves. Anywhere but here it would have been considered a fine object.

"It's not so bad," Alex said.

"Yes it is. It doesn't belong here. I can't believe someone came this far just to dump it." Caroline looked like she might cry.

"Come on, now," he said in what he hoped was a comforting voice. "I think we can use it." He touched the rounded edge of the tub and then climbed inside, situating himself like he was taking a bath. He flashed Caroline a smile. "See? Never fear!" He did not even know why he climbed inside or what he was going to do next.

She stifled a giggle and then held up a finger. "Wait here. Don't move." She disappeared back the way they had come, leaving Alex sitting alone in the tub. He tapped his fingers on the sides and looked around. A few birds changed positions in the trees, and a twig snapped somewhere in the distance. With slight alarm, Alex realized he had not had a cigarette in almost twelve hours yet somehow he did not need one. He leaned back a little more and focused on the sound of the river behind him until he saw Caroline reappear with her backpack on. She was dragging the blanket behind her.

"Ok, get up," she said plunking everything onto the ground. Alex did and helped her spread the dingy green blanket inside the tub. Then they both climbed in and settled on opposite sides facing each other. Alex reached over the edge and pulled the backpack in with them. He unzipped it and dug out two plastic cups and the bottle of wine Caroline packed. Once they filled their cups to the brim, Caroline stretched her legs as far as she could. "You're right. This isn't the worst thing." She took a gulp of wine and wiped a stray drop from the top of her lip. Alex wished he were on the same side as she was so he could gather her in his arms and have her sit in between his legs with her back against his chest. Her small body would fit perfectly there, he decided, and tried not to think about it anymore so he wouldn't get hard right then and there.

"What's it like where you grew up?" Her voice broke his fantasy, and he started to talk. He talked about his house, his neighborhood friends, his favorite bike trails, and his cat. He told her about Portugal and about how his dad drank himself out of the family and down to a suburb of Albuquerque. He talked about his first girlfriend and about how he used to bully other kids until he was in junior high school and discovered Thoreau. He talked more than he remembered ever having talked at one time before, and Caroline listened to every word until night had completely overtaken the sky.

"I think there's a train at 10:40 that you can make if you hurry," she said shoving the blanket into the backpack and glancing around quickly at the thickening dark.

"Are you not coming?"

"No, I think I'll stay here another day. My brother is coming back tomorrow from his hockey tournament, and I'd like to see him."

"Oh, alright." Alex thought he saw shadows clouding Caroline's face. _They weren't there before, those shadows. _

"Will that be ok?" she asked without so much as a glance at him. "You know where the train station is and everything?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Ok, good."

They had not thought to bring flashlights and started walking back toward Caroline's house as quickly as the wooded trail would allow. Alex tried to ignore the calls of the coyotes and the steep drop in temperature as they made their way back toward the house. His whole body turned cold and he shivered as he bent down to dodge the sharp, gnarled branches that he could not even see. To keep out the chill he turned his thoughts to the solitary train ride back into the city. Perhaps if he were lucky he would sit next to a beautiful woman and ask her if she wanted to smoke or grab a cocktail in the club car. She would refuse, but at least he asked.

**Chapter eight**

Caroline awoke to the sound of voices drifting up from downstairs and determined that her family was back from Max's tournament. Bits and pieces of the conversation told her that his team had lost because of some rift between two of the members. _They just couldn't put it together to score enough goals. Max did well, though. Two assists! _She smiled at her brother's accomplishment and pulled the blankets tighter up to her chin. A memory of the night before seized her, and she breathed in trying to catch a remnant of Alex's scent. She couldn't tell if she actually smelled him on her sheets or if it were just the work of a hopeful imagination, but she immediately lowered the blankets with shame. She did not want to be the type of girl who sniffed her boyfriend's sweater in his absence while pining away to Nicholas Sparks film adaptations. _No._ And besides, Alex wasn't even her boyfriend yet. _Yet?_ She threw off the blankets and swung herself off the bed to see what was going on downstairs without her. After rounding the corner of the L-shaped staircase she saw her mother at the sink washing some fruit and Max at the table bent over a bowl of steaming oatmeal.

"Good morning," she called to announce herself.

Her mother turned around. "Good morning! I didn't know you were home."

"Yeah, what are you doing here?" asked Max. She ignored his question and sat down at the table across from him.

"I got in last night," she lied in response. "Is there coffee?"

"I'm sorry, no. We just got back so we haven't made any yet." Her mother dried her hands on a towel hanging by the sink and looked over at her daughter.

"It's fine. I can make some. Anyone else want any?" Caroline got up again and gave Max a look that said 'I'll tell you later' as she made her way to the pantry to get coffee filters. Despite being of different genders and having a year in between them, Caroline had always felt a strong understanding between herself and her brother. Throughout their youth they had covered for each other's fibs, kept each other's secrets, and shared each other's friends, but never showed much outward affection or even acknowledged their closeness. Caroline was fairly certain that it was earlier that year in the fall when she went away to college that she had ever heard Max say 'I love you,' to her. She remembered saying it back to him as they shared a small, embarrassed hug in her new dorm room next to her unpacked suitcases and an old bunk bed. Since then Caroline had begun to seek Max out via phone calls and computer messages to share things with him that would have required no effort if they were both at home. Though Max was so busy with hockey, soccer, and honors society at his high school, Caroline got the impression he liked taking time to hear what she was up to and tell her his own stories. Each time she came home on a break from school, the first thing she did was race up the stairs to his room, settle herself on his carpeted floor, and tell him all the new riotous college stories she would never admit to her parents.

"How did the tournament go?" she asked as she poured water into the coffee maker. She wanted to hear them talk about it even though she already knew what happened because it would give her brain some room to think of other things. Things like Alex's skin against hers. She measured out the coffee grounds and dumped them in the filter while her mother recounted the tale of a missed goal and while her mind floated over Alex's words from the other night. He was so different from anyone she had met before, so matter-of-fact, so strangely romantic without actually being so. Come fall she might be treading the campus' cobblestones with him at her side. This thought comforted her as she watched the first amber drops fall from the coffee maker.

"Wow, I can't believe Andy and Michael fell apart like that!" She said to her mother. She didn't miss a beat. "They're usually such a good duo. Almost unstoppable."

"Yeah, it was heartbreaking at first, but by the second half we had all lost hope," her mother said. "I don't know what got into them."

Caroline looked at Max. He put the last spoon of oatmeal into his mouth decisively and glanced up at her as he rose to clear the table.

"Good oatmeal, Mom. Thanks." He put his dishes in the dishwasher and then headed up to his room. Caroline wanted to join him immediately but was not about to begin anything without her coffee. It hadn't made much progress, so she was stuck in the kitchen for a few more minutes.

"So what brings you home?" her mother asked. She was leaning against the counter in her uniform of a polo shirt and ill-fitting jeans. Caroline always thought her mother could be much more beautiful if she just wore clothes that fit her small frame better.

"I just needed to get out of the city." She desperately wanted to tell her mom about Alex so she would know about this wonderful boy her daughter had found. She wanted her mom to congratulate her and ask more about him just so Caroline could talk about him. She wanted everyone to know what he had done, what he had said to her, where they had gone, but felt somehow that it needed to remain a secret like there was something illicit about it. "It's so suffocating sometimes."

"I see. Well, you're always welcome here, you know that."

"I know that, Mom. Thanks." She wondered if her mom sensed anything. _How could she not?_ Caroline felt like a completely different person after the time she'd spent with Alex these past two days. It was like she had completely shed the disguise she had been wearing all her life, and this was finally the real person. She grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured a large cup of coffee. "Is it ok if I take this upstairs?"

"Yes, just be careful."

"I will."

"Caroline?"

"Yeah, Mom?" she paused at the foot of the stairs.

"How long are you staying?"

"Just until after dinner, I think. I have school Monday."

"Ok. How would you like to do a little shopping with me later today?"

"I'd like that a lot, actually. I just need to make sure I have time to finish my homework."

"Alright, we'll leave after lunch."

"Perfect," Caroline said as she climbed slowly up the stairs, careful not to let any coffee slosh out of the mug onto the beige carpeting. When she got to the top she saw that Max's door was open like he had been expecting her, but she knocked on the frame anyway.

"Yep, I'm here."

She walked in and sat down on the floor like she always did. "So what's the deal with Andy and Michael?" She wanted him to go first.

"God, ok. The night before we left for the tournament Andy had a party because his parents were out of town," he said as threw a ball up and down into the air." It got kind of out of hand because his older brother got us all some vodka, and a lot of the people there had never drank alcohol before this."

"Oh, no."

"Yep. I mean, I had, so I was ok."

Caroline smiled when she remembered teaching Max how to take a shot of rum a couple years ago. Perhaps she was a bad influence, but she didn't care. He was smart, and she wanted to get him used to alcohol in the comfort of her presence.

"But some of the others were a different story," he continued. "Keene and Cizewski both puked on the lawn, but that wasn't until later. First some girls from the lacrosse team showed up, including Andy's girlfriend. She never tasted vodka lemonade before, and by the end of the night she was kissing Michael."

Caroline let her jaw fall even though she wasn't too concerned with these high school infidelities and would never keep them straight. She wanted Max to keep confiding in her, though, so she feigned rapt attention.

"I bet you can guess where this is going. Andy comes out to the back yard, sees them on the lounge chairs together, punches Michael. I think someone ended up in the pool, too, but it's not related." He bounced the ball against the wall and caught it again. "They were still pissed at each other at the tournament and wouldn't work together at all."

"Damn, that sucks, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, they're so immature."

Caroline nodded.

"So, what's your thing?" Max asked holding the ball steady. "Why did you come back?"

"Remember that kid I met in my philosophy class in the fall? The sort-of handsome one who wore the sweaters?"

Max nodded with a slight roll of his eyes, and Caroline told him everything. She told him about Alex coming to her diner, about meeting him for Mexican food, about boarding a train, about the wine, about breakfast, and about the woods. She tried to say everything in the same golden tones in which it had happened, but it was impossible. Somehow in telling the story it lost something, or rather it had something she couldn't reach like running to catch the base of a sunset. She wished she could grab onto it and open her palms to show it to Max because he didn't seem as excited as she wanted him to be. For some reason she couldn't tell it the right way, the way that would make him understand all that she had uncovered the night before.

After lunch was over she sat in the car as her mom navigated out of the lovely, small town of Tryton and into the crowded suburban streets in their SUV. The shopping centers on all sides left Caroline wondering if people knew how to have fun without buying things. _Do they even know what real happiness is? Is a grande mocha latte in a plastic cup and a new pair of sneakers all it takes? _The thought of it was awful. She bet no one in this town had ever had the kind of night she just had with Alex. _No, these people couldn't possibly know what it was to truly live._ She reached for the dial to turn up the volume on the radio while she pitied the rest of humanity. As the drumbeat of a new song filled the car, Caroline realized how quiet the ride had been. She filled her mom in about classes and about the newspaper articles she had been working on, but there were gaping holes in the conversation that she did not know how to fill. The only words she could think to say were about Alex, but after Max's less-than-enthusiastic reaction she had no intentions of relating it to her mother, who would be more judgmental if anything. Instead she stayed quiet and let the radio do all the work while she watched the suburban scenery pass outside the window. Gray, yellow, red. Bland, bland, bland. Finally they pulled up to the department store, and Caroline stepped out of the car to wait while her mom locked it. She reached in her purse to check if there were any messages from Alex on her phone. There was nothing. _Oh well_, it had only been yesterday that they parted. She put it back in her bag and strolled with her mother up to the front and in through the sliding doors where a blast of unnaturally cold air pummeled her body. It was only April and still cool, so she did not see why the stores had to have the air conditioning pumping full tilt. All around her she saw racks and racks of new spring styles lit by harsh overhead lights and surrounded by women roaming like grazing cattle.

"I'd like to get a jacket," Caroline said to her mother. "A light one for spring. Maybe something with a belt and tortoiseshell buttons." She thought back to a magazine spread where that Ukrainian model—what was her name? Something-a-kova?—was wearing a khaki trench coat and walking around the Scottish highlands looking forlorn. That's what she wanted.

"Alright, if you find something you can get it. I'm going to be over by the shoes because I need some new ones that I can wear to work."

Caroline headed towards the jackets and sifted through them with an expert hand. _Too short. Too bulky. Too frilly. Too blue._ Finally she found a couple that seemed close to what she was looking for, and she carried them over to the mirror on the back wall. As she tried each one on she pictured the person she would be if she bought it. She would be confident and outgoing, and people would know her name. She would write articles that people would read about topics that mattered. She would cover America's worsening financial crisis with new insight and a spin that would appeal to her college peers. She would cross oceans and transcend borders. After belting the coat she looked at her reflection. This one definitely made her look taller, she decided. That's the one she would get. She turned a couple times to see the different angles and was satisfied with all of them. From inside her purse she heard a vibration, and her breath caught in her chest. Still wearing the coat she reached in and pulled out her phone. It was something from her friend Lucy. _Damn._ She shut it and put it back in her bag to reply to later. After one more look at her reflection she took off the coat and walked around the store a few times until she saw her mom looking at some sweaters on display.

"Found one." She lifted the coat in the air so her mother could see it.

"It's beautiful, Caroline, I love it. You'll look so sophisticated wearing it."

Caroline grimaced. "Thanks." While her mother walked to the checkout counter she pulled her phone out of her bag to reply to Lucy's inquiry about getting coffee this afternoon. She must have heard Caroline was in town, _but from who?_ _How did people always seem to find out where she was?_ Not that she minded hanging out with Lucy, in fact she considered Lucy her best friend for the past few years, but still she couldn't go anywhere without someone asking something of her. She told Lucy she'd love to meet her and would be at her house in a half hour.

"Hey, Mom, can you possibly drop me off at Lucy's after this?" she asked catching sight of her reflection in the window as they left the store.

"I guess. Will you be back for dinner?"

"Definitely. We'll only be an hour or two. Just grabbing some coffee."

Her mother agreed and let Caroline out of the car once they stopped in front of a Victorian house where Lucy was already sitting outside on the porch swing waiting. She looked up from the magazine she was reading as Caroline trotted up the steps.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

Lucy looked back at her with sleeping panda eyes. "Sure, what's your rush? You come into town on a whim, don't even tell me you're here, and then want to hurry me right off my own porch. My god, Caroline, sometimes I think you're operating on a completely different concept of time and courtesy."

"What are you talking about? You're insane."

"I know." Lucy smiled and stood up. "I missed you."

"And I missed you, too," Caroline relented with a smile as she reached out to hug her friend. "Now can we get coffee? I'm fiending."

"Yeah let's go. Oh! I got my car door repaired so you don't have to hold it shut while we drive anymore."

"There's some good news."

"Right?"

The girls drove with the windows down and let the Top 40 radio station compete for attention against the wind and against Lucy's chatter until they reached the coffee shop. It was one of those major chain stores filled with middle aged guys on lap tops and junior high school kids feeling the first strains of independence. Caroline hated this place, but it had the monopoly on coffee in her town so she could do nothing about it but complain. Which she did.

"God, I _hate_ this place. I wonder how many of these kids got dropped off while their parents are at open houses? I swear, if they start shrieking I'll—"

"You'll what, Caroline?" Lucy asked sitting down and blowing on her chai tea to cool it.

"I'll say something to them. I'll call them out on it." Caroline straightened her blouse as she looked at a table of young girls decked out in shiny braces and too much eye makeup. "Do they know how ridiculous they look? I hope I wasn't like that at their age."

Lucy raised her eyebrows.

"You're right," Caroline said. "I was worse."

"We both were. I wore body glitter in eighth grade."

"Woe is us!" Caroline leaned her head on the table and feigned death.

"Cheer up. At least we're cool now."

Caroline looked up and caught her friend's eye before they both burst out laughing.

"If that's what we're calling it nowadays."

"So, what have you been up to?" Lucy asked. "You come back into town randomly so I figure something must be up."

"Sort of." Caroline took a sip of her coffee and looked out the window to the sunny parking lot. She wanted to bring Alex to her mind, but the scene outside just wouldn't let her because it was not fitting of him. It was not intricate enough, not intelligent enough, not _anything_ enough. "I met a boy," she said.

"Go on."

"Actually I re-met a boy. Remember the kid in my philosophy class in the fall?"

"The one that looked German that you wanted to strip search?"

"Lucy!"

"What? That's how you sounded. 'Ohhh, he's soooo sexy. I've never wanted anyone so badly. I must have him, I must!'"

"Ok, _that's_ an exaggeration. But, yeah. That one."

"Did you get it in?"

"Lucy!"

"What?" she asked, pulling a strand of her long dark hair off her dress and dropping it onto the floor. "I'm just trying to get to the interesting part._ Plus, _I'm saving you from imminent death-by-chai because if you start to tell me you're in love or something like that I'm going to have to throw my drink at you. I just simply can_not_ hear about love right now, what with Jason acting like such an idiot all the time." Lucy lay both her hands flat on the table and looked at Caroline. "Did you know on Friday he hung up on me in the middle of a conversation and then didn't call or text until this morning?"

"I did not."

"He did. Horrible excuse for a boyfriend, that one."

"You could break up with him," Caroline offered.

"He'll pay. That's what he'll do."

"As long as you've got it figured out."

Lucy nodded as she sipped her tea. "Now tell me about this guy."

By Tuesday morning Caroline was in a frenzy. She had a midnight deadline she knew she would not meet and three group members from her French class who were mad at her for showing up late for their project meeting. She looked at her watch as she half ran across the campus to the cafeteria to grab a quick lunch before she had to install herself in the library until the 9:00 PM staff meeting where her article would be torn apart. At least she was wearing her new coat. She approved of her reflection in a window as she hurried into the cafeteria.

While waiting in a long line to pay for her Caprese sandwich and Coke she scanned the other student diners absently. Something between horror and joy crashed over her as she caught sight of Alex sitting at a table in the corner. He was with the kid in the hooded sweatshirt she had met in November and another boy, this one very blonde and talking incessantly. They looked like they had finished eating and were now just killing time chatting. Caroline handed her card over to the cashier when she reached the front and didn't take her eyes off of Alex's table. The blonde boy said something that caused Alex to break out into laughter, and Caroline felt her lungs contract. She smiled and thanked the cashier before taking her food over to where Alex was sitting. She looked put-together for a change, and didn't want to waste it.

"Hey," she said stopping in front of the table.

All three boys looked up.

"Oh, hey, Caroline," said Alex with no discernible expression on his face.

"Hey, I remember you," said the kid in the sweatshirt. "I'm Victor, in case you forgot."

Caroline had forgotten. "I didn't forget you! Good to see you." Then to the blonde boy: "I'm Caroline." She offered her hand, and he took it pleasantly.

"I'm Jack. It's nice to meet you. How do you all know each other?"

_The dreaded question._ Caroline waited for Alex to reply.

"We were partners for a project last semester, and…"

_And?_

"…and one time we were working on it and ran into Victor."

Caroline's heart deflated a few sizes.

"Yeah, this girl can write, but she doesn't know anything about politics," said Victor.

"Excuse me! Just because you don't agree with my views doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about."

"Fair enough. I have read a few of your pieces since then, and I think they ought to give you more interesting assignments. You're better than dining hall hi-jinks."

"Thanks, I appreciate that." Caroline said. She couldn't agree with him more about the subject matter she usually had to write about. Reviews of an art show, updates on campus construction—they were fine, they were work, but she wanted more. Her eyes wandered to Alex's face as she tried her best to appear comfortable and casual standing in front of them. Alex took a sip of the soft drink he had in front of him and looked like he was not going to make any attempt to include her in his lunchtime gathering. _It's just the boys today._ Caroline got it.

Jack asked her what her major was so she exchanged small talk with him for a few minutes before excusing herself to go to the library. On the walk over she wondered what was going on with Alex that made him so quiet back there. He seemed so different in front of them than he did when they were by themselves at her house, and she thought maybe she should text him. Perhaps it would open up the channels, and Alex would start communicating like a normal human being. She passed through the library doors and took the steps up to the second floor where the sun illuminated the whole interior through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She looked for a seat—anywhere would do—and spotted an armchair that called her name so she unpacked her shoulder bag to lay claim to it. As soon as she sat down and pulled out her laptop she realized that she forgot to get coffee from the café on her way up. _Damn._ Oh well, lunch first, then caffeine. She did have a bottle of Coke that contained enough sugar to keep her going for a while. Chewing on her sandwich she took another glance at her phone and decided she would definitely text Alex in a few hours. Nothing important, just something light that might brighten his mood and reaffirm her presence in the world. Finally she wiped the crumbs off her lap and reluctantly turned her thoughts to the paper that she was about to start on the Algerian War.

**Chapter nine**

For Alex the next few weeks went by in a haze of late nights at the library studying for finals and goodbye parties for friends that were leaving for the summer. One of the best soirees was a James Bond themed party thrown by the members of the campus literature magazine. Alex went even though he hadn't submitted anything that year. He went to meetings every once in a while, though, to vote on which pieces he thought should be included. Some of the submissions were truly miserable, and he wanted to make sure they never got further than the editor's computer screen. Besides the Bond party where he drank several martinis and danced with a lit-girl who was cute in a mousy sort of way, Alex mostly got quietly wasted on cheap beer and wound up in strangely intellectual conversations with guys he knew from classes. After everyone he knew had gone home he would walk back to his apartment in the small, silent hours thinking about the girls he had seen and should have talked to. Maybe if he had said something, anything, he wouldn't be walking alone and instead would have his arm looped around her slim waist while explaining classic novels to her using witty, topical analogies. Or maybe he would talk about the best bets of the underground hip hop scene or which strain of weed was best for which situation. _Depends on the girl._ Either way, though, he would be talking out loud to another human being and not reciting speeches in his head.

He thought about Caroline, too, but after that one night at her parents' house she had been pretty distant for reasons unknown to him. _Had he said something that offended her that night? Was she waiting for an apology or was she simply done with him?_ Either way, Alex did not want to seem eager. He would have jumped at the chance to see her again if she suggested it, but she never did. She texted him about something silly once after he saw her in the dining hall, and he responded, but nothing came of it. _She's probably busy with final exams,_ he figured. Or maybe that DJ fuck was back in her life. He did not know. Maybe soon he would contact her to find out when she was leaving for the summer. If he were lucky she might be in the mood for one last fling before the semester ended. She seemed like the kind of girl who wouldn't pass up an opportunity, even if it were just so she could tell her friends about it later.

In the coffee-and-beer-fueled fog that was Alex's end of the semester, a singular event sliced through. A few days before his exams Alex got an email from his campus post office saying a package had arrived for him. He thought it was very strange because no one ever sent him packages, and the only mail he ever got was from his bank offering him credit cards he shouldn't have. Alex looked at his watch after reading the message and realized he had some time before his last class so he put on a light sweater and walked the four or five blocks it took to reach the mailroom. He swiped his card and held the door for a girl in a sundress holding a basket as big as a barrel filled with popcorn, ramen noodles, chocolate bars, and fruit. Freshmen were always getting things like that from their parents in the mail as if those items would lead to academic success. If their parents were really thinking they would have included a prescription for Adderall.

Alex approached the desk where a guy with pimples on his forehead stood smiling at him. He eyed the kid's polo shirt, smartly done in the school's colors, and said hello because he was not sure how the process worked. _Was he supposed to have printed something out? Did he just give his name? _

"I'll just need to see your I.D.," the kid said happily. Alex did not understand what he could possibly have to be happy about in a situation like this, but he took out his I.D. and slid it across the counter anyway. "Ok, great! I remember seeing something with your name on it. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Alex stood looking at the wall behind the desk while he waited for his package to be retrieved from some cave or wherever they kept all the students' boxes. The back room certainly did not look big enough to hold them all. He realized that even the clock was decorated with the school's colors and wondered if there were a whole business dedicated to making customized clocks for universities. Maybe that was the type of job he should look for once he graduated in two years. It didn't seem hard and would probably give him a lot of time to read or write on the side.

"Here we go!" The pimply kid emerged waving a box that Alex could hold with one hand.

"Thanks. Do I need to sign for it or anything?"

"Nope! All set."

"Ok, thanks," Alex said again as he grabbed the box, which was heavier than it looked, and left the mailroom. Once he was outside he looked at the label on the front and saw that it was from his father. He had not seen his father in about three years and hadn't even talked to him on the phone since last Christmas. _What could he possibly want to send?_ Alex decided to skip his last class, which would be a review session anyways, and go back to his apartment to open the package.

When he got home he walked straight past his roommate who was sitting on the couch with his sow-looking girlfriend. He could not remember if he said 'hello' to them or not, but did not particularly care about simulating friendship anyway. It was too late for that. He went into his room and closed the door before grabbing a pair of scissors and settling himself on his bed. After cutting through the cardboard and prying open the folds he lifted a coffee mug decorated in a green, red, and purple tribal pattern. It was pretty ugly. Underneath it said "Handmade in Chile." _Chile? When did he go to Chile?_ He set the mug on the bed and dumped out the rest of the box's contents: some packing paper, an eraser that probably got in by mistake, and a letter written on loose leaf paper. Alex opened it and began to wade through his father's impossible handwriting. It began with a bunch of awkward pleasantries that used the word "son" a lot. He read through the basic questions about school, friends, and his dating life before landing on the crux of the letter. His father had experienced a windfall of an unspecified nature and was getting "quite the opportunity" to experience life and "drink its sweet nectar." He had gone to Oregon, Chile, and Maine in the past few months and now had his sights set on Europe. Spain, to be exact. He wondered would Alex like to accompany him on a two-week sojourn in San Sebastian? It would be after classes ended, of course, and would afford him the opportunity to really get to know his son, which is what his "heart yearned for." At the end was a phone number to call when he had made a decision.

Alex folded up the letter and put it back in the box. He stared at the blank wall above his desk where he had been meaning to put up a print of Malevich's "Red Cavalry" and watched the white walls swirl into a funnel of emptiness. The bright box of sky outside the window offered no relief and collided with the whirling mess of the walls turning it into a vortex of white upon white upon white. Turning, swirling, rocking back and forth endlessly, it separated into particles and reassembled, all while separating once more. Alex had to look away to get some relief. That did it. He couldn't stay here any longer and rolled over to grab his phone to dial the number scrawled at the end of the letter.

**Chapter ten**

Under the glaring lights of the library's second floor Caroline watched her roommate Jennifer staring intently at a book on the social implications of bullying. Jennifer had one of those earnest faces that came from being raised in a town of a thousand people where you had the same friends from the time you started kindergarten to the time you walked the stage at high school graduation. She was beautiful in a Little House on the Prairie sort of way and had the straight smile and corn-colored hair that only good, church-going girls are blessed with. Fortunately for Caroline Jen never tried to shove religion in her face. She never shoved much of anything on anyone, in fact, and somehow even put up with Caroline's whims. Caroline looked at Jen for a few seconds longer and envied her. _How can she be so interested in that book? How is she always so content?_ _Does jogging, singing in the choir, and making regular visits to one's hometown really cure all that ails a person?_ Caroline gritted her teeth. At least she didn't have farmer's daughter shoulders like Jen.

In an effort to forget the work in front of her she looked across the library to see if there were anyone she knew. Her eyes were especially sharpened for tall, German-looking boys or anyone in a cardigan, but the only person she knew was a girl in her French class who looked eerily like a dinosaur. Caroline could never figure out what it was that gave her that impression but it was uncanny. She averted her eyes because the girl was completely insufferable in class, and she wanted to avoid any possibility of a conversation. She leaned back and glanced up through the open ceiling to the third floor. Suddenly she caught sight of Alex's blonde friend Jack sitting at a table with a few others. Caroline sat up straighter. She wondered if Alex had said anything about her to Jack after she ran into them having lunch a few weeks earlier.

"Hey, Jen, I'm going to go upstairs and make some copies of this study guide."

Jen looked up. "But isn't there a copy machine on this floor?"

"There is, but it never works for me. Plus I just need to stretch my legs a little bit. We've been sitting here since 8:30!"

"Alright, I'll be here watching your stuff," Jen said pleasantly.

"Thanks! Be back soon."

Caroline got up and almost forgot to bring some papers to copy. On her way up the stairs she straightened her dress and hoped her tights weren't bunching at the knees. She took the longest path to the copier so that Jack was sure to see her if he looked up, but she dared not look in his direction. She stopped in front of the copier and realized she didn't bring any change. It was sixteen cents per page. _Damn._ She smacked the top of the copier lightly with her papers and then turned around to go back downstairs. As she did, though, she caught Jack's eye. He excused himself from his table and came towards her.

"Caroline! How goes it?"

"Hey, Jack. I'm fine, but I realized I forgot to bring change to copy this study guide. Finals are wreaking havoc on my brain. I just can't keep all the information from classes _plus_ all the little daily things in my head. Something has to suffer, and right now it's my common sense."

"The tragedy of the academic life."

"Something like that."

"I can help you out with your copying problem. I've got a dime bag."

Caroline's mouth dropped open.

"I mean, a bag of dimes." Jack grinned as he took out a little cloth coin holder stuffed with coins. "How many do you need?"

"Just about sixty cents."

"Here you go." He set six dimes in her open palm.

"Thanks, you're a savior."

"That's what they tell me."

There was a pause in conversation, and all Caroline could think to talk about was Alex. He was the only thing they really had in common. Jack spoke first.

"So, seen Alex lately?"

"Nah, not really. How's he doing?" Caroline hoped her voice sounded as detached as she wanted to feel, not like she'd been hoping since that day in the woods that he would want to see her again.

"He's crazy as usual. So involved with school that I've barely seen him. We usually get lunch a couple times a week, but he's been canceling a lot lately. I have seen him at a couple parties, but he's usually hammered and incomprehensible by the time I show up."

"Wow," Caroline laughed. "That's pretty weird."

So Alex was going to parties and getting drunk and _that's_ why he was too busy to get in touch. _Mystery solved. Nice work, Scoob._ Caroline felt like the room was getting smaller and wanted the conversation to be over with.

"Yep, crazy son-of-a-bitch, that kid. Well, anyway, I've got a mean physics lab to get through before midnight, so I should get back to my table," said Jack motioning.

"Ooh, best of luck. And enjoy your dime bag," Caroline said doing the closest thing to a wink that she could muster.

"Was that a wink?" Jack roared with laughter.

"Why, yes it was! Now excuse me, sir, I have copies to make." She turned toward the machine and began inserting dimes for copies she didn't even need.

"Have a good summer!" Jack called behind her. Caroline waved a response without turning around. When she got downstairs and sat down at the table Jen looked up at her.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"Nothing," Caroline said rearranging papers and books.

"Yes something. You're all huffy."

"I'm not. It's just that I'm realizing how much work I have left to do."

"Ok, well if you want to talk I'll listen. I'm about ready to take a break anyway."

"Sure, maybe later." Caroline looked at her study guide without actually seeing the words.

"Is it Alex?"

"What?"

"Is it something with Alex that's making you upset?"

"No, why would it be? I haven't even seen him in three weeks."

"That's exactly it."

"I mean, I don't really care that much. It was a fling, and we had fun. He's one of the weirdest people I know, and I mean that in a good way, but it is what it is. Onward."

"Didn't you say you had a lot in common and that you could talk to him in a way that you couldn't with most other people?"

Caroline wished Jen didn't listen so intently to every little thing she ever said. "Well, yeah, at the _time_ I felt like that, but not anymore. He was just a pretty boy, and there are plenty more of those around."

"Ok, if you say so!" Jen said grinning. "Now, I'm going to get a muffin from the café if it's still open. Want anything?"

"Uh, yeah, if there's anything six-foot, blue eyes, that looks like it plays tennis on the weekends and likes Korean food, I'll take that."

Jen threw a scrap of paper at Caroline. "Coming right up!" she said with a laugh and walked off. Caroline stretched her arms, bent her neck both directions, and then picked up her pen. _Study guide time._ She set her pen down again. After she checked her phone for messages _then_ she would be ready to start. Already she saw it flashing from inside her bag and flipped it open to see who it was. There were two messages: one from Lucy asking about a Peace Corps informational session, and one from another friend inviting her to an end-of-the-semester party the next night. That party could be just the remedy she needed, so she said she'd be there, put her phone where she couldn't see it, and finally began to flip through her anthropology textbook.

**Chapter eleven**

How she got from the party to Alex's bedroom was still unclear. One minute she was laughing and clinking shot glasses with her friend, and the next she was rushing to the door to meet Alex who was standing outside waiting for her to come out. She couldn't remember if she texted him or if he texted her, but it happened, and now Caroline's heart was beating madly as she opened the door. There he was, standing against the stark urban landscape in his argyle sweater, jeans, and loafers. He wasn't smiling, and that didn't change even when he laid eyes on her.

"Hey," she said trotting down the stairs in shoes that she thought were both understated and sexy. _How would he resist?_ She came to a stop directly in front of him and waited for him to make a move.

"Hey. So, it's only a few blocks to my apartment, but it might start raining soon, so we should go." He looked off to the side as he spoke and made no effort to touch her. Not even a friendly 'Hey-it's-been-a-month-since-I've-seen-you' hug. _Nada._ Caroline's rum-muddled brain told her to play it cool so she agreed, trying to squash the frustration that he did not instantly fall prey to her drunken charm. As they started down the sidewalk, walking close enough together that they could carry on a conversation, but not so close that their hands might accidentally touch, Caroline felt the mist crawling through the silent air. _How is the city so quiet tonight?_ Her shoes _clack-clacked_ to break through the stillness, but Caroline needed words. She could not remember what she started talking about, but it segued into Alex discussing the next semester. Alex said he was sick of the city and wanted to get away. He was planning to study abroad in Ireland where there were green hills, cliffs overlooking turbulent seas, and pubs on every corner. Real people lived there—real working people. Not the phonies that carried yoga mats and smart phones on the train. Plus he could take a whole course on James Joyce and have time to work on his writing.

This was the first she ever heard of this plan. Caroline listened to his words so nicely strung together and watched the daydreams she had of treading across the campus hand-in-hand with him next fall wither away and wash down the sewer drains like the rain that had begun falling faster through air. She lowered her head and knew this all was nothing. All the time she'd spent picturing them studying together in the library, eating lunch by the lake, excusing themselves from parties so they could go home and be in bed together was as good as garbage. What did he even want from her anyway? It didn't matter now, she decided, so all that remained was to have a good time with him until he left. She told herself she would be casual. Make him come to her. That was the way. They still had the summer, _right?_ Their families' houses were not extremely far apart, only about an hour, and Caroline calculated the ease with which they could drive to meet for a languid summer rendezvous. She saw gin, short dresses, gardens, wet skin, the moon.

"I haven't applied for the program yet, but I'm going to do that as soon as finals are over. I have to finish the application before I go to Spain with my dad next week."

"You're going to Spain?"

"Yep. For two and a half weeks."

So that was that. Now even the summer seemed a lost cause. Two and a half weeks were akin to an eternity, and Caroline felt her chest contract. She was glad she had drunk so much at the party or else this would feel much worse. The city lights began to blur, and she hoped it was the rain and not her eyes filling with tears. _Such a waste this was._ She began to hope this night would never end, that the liquor would never stop coursing through her body, that the dark would never lift. If she could walk next to Alex like this forever she would be happy, she thought. Even if he never grabbed her hand or touched her face or kissed her. But they got to his front door, and before he put the key in the lock he turned and put his hands firmly on her waist. He locked his eyes on hers like he was drinking them in before their bodies collapsed together in embrace.

Caroline's phone buzzed on her night table, but she didn't bother answering it. She knew it was her dad calling to tell her he was outside her dorm room with the truck ready to load all her things and take her back home for the summer. She looked around the room at all the black garbage bags she had hastily thrown everything into a few hours before. She was never any good at packing. It always seemed tedious, even if she were packing for a vacation or a weekend trip she was looking forward to. Packing to move from a place is the worst, though, because you have to cycle through all the memories from the time you moved in until now. Ticket stubs and notes from friends cause you to revisit occasions you wished were still upcoming, and calendars inform you of how much time has passed and all the relatively dull things you've done with it. You smile and you want to cry. You agonize about whether or not you should throw out or keep trinkets, books, and photos. _Is it worth taking up space in the duffle bag? Will it even matter in a year or two?_ When you pack you face inward because there's nothing else you can do. You see where you've come from and wonder where you're going. Right now Caroline knew exactly where she was going—back to the house she'd spent most her life in, the house where her brother and parents and dogs still lived and carried on like they always had. She looked out the window and saw the big black truck idling outside in the sunlight. Other freshman were loading their family cars as well, hauling laundry bags and suitcases of every size. Concerned parents helped them take out carts filled with leftover packs of Gatorade and the extra-long twin bedding they had been so excited to buy in August. She watched the procession of Ikea lamps and Target storage containers before realizing her dad was calling her again. This time she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi Caroline, it's Dad."

He always said who it was even though every phone for the past two decades had caller ID.

"Hi Dad. I see you outside."

"Ok, yeah, I'm here so let's get going. Bring one load out and then I'll come up with you to help with the rest. I want to get home before dinner."

"Alright, I'll be down. See you soon."

Caroline hung up and scanned the bags to see which she should take first. A few friends had come over the night before to help her re-bunk the beds and fill the holes in the walls with toothpaste from where the tacks holding her posters had not come out cleanly, but the rest of the room was littered with bags. Finally she grabbed her backpack and the garbage bag she had filled with dresses and socks and went into the hall to meet her dad. Halfway down the elevator she realized she had forgotten to lock the door again. _Typical._ Why Jen had agreed to live with her for another year was a mystery.

When she got downstairs her dad was standing outside the truck with his hands in his pockets. He was dressed crisply as usual even though it was warm outside and they would spend the whole afternoon carting bags to the truck. She greeted him simply and threw the bag she dragged across the street into the backseat.

"There's so much more up there. I don't know how I got this much stuff." She put a hand to her forehead and felt exhausted already. If only she could skip the moving part and just be in the car flying along the expressway on the way back home.

"It won't be that bad. I'll bet we can make it in two more trips."

"I doubt that," she scoffed as she plodded in her carefully selected Moving Day Shoes back to the front door of the dorm. She knew she was acting moody but couldn't help it. Her dad would never call her out on it either because he was too good to her.

Somehow he was right, though, and in two visits to the room they were able to carry all her belongings out to the truck. She sat next to him in the front seat as he navigated out of the city through the tight, sharp-smelling roads, and Caroline realized how much she loved them. She complained in the winter about the exhaust-tinted sludge, in the spring about the lake-sized puddles on the walk to class, and all year round about how long it took to walk to the grocery store, but now she looked with new fondness on those streets. In the gentle sun of early May they said their apologies, and she forgave them because they bled from the shards of her life this past year. They dripped with walks home in every type of weather, oozed with conversations light and dark, and hemorrhaged laughter.

The stoplight turned red, and Caroline's dad pressed the brake. She realized the street they were stopped at was the same one she had walked home along at seven in the morning after leaving Alex's apartment just a few days earlier. She had woken up with the birds that morning, her head still heavy with liquor, and tried to orient herself. Alex had his arm draped loosely over her shoulders so she couldn't move much, but what she could see of the room was austere and vaguely clerical. There was nothing on his walls, and his desk was in perfect order with all books stacked neatly between bookends in the shape of an uppercase "H." _What did "H" stand for anyway? _She pulled the dove gray comforter up to her chin and tried to relax in Alex's embrace, but it was impossible. She knew she had finals to finish studying for and packing to start. Unfortunately she was on the side of the bed against the wall so leaving without waking him was nearly impossible. She tried wriggling a little to loosen his arm, but he opened his eyes instead and looked at her absently as if he were still dreaming. Then he kissed her sweetly, without a word. The kiss continued, and Caroline put her arms around his broad shoulders and pressed her body against his. She felt him get hard against her stomach and lay back for a replay of what had drunkenly happened the night before. As before, they stopped just short of sex. Caroline didn't know if he were trying to be a gentleman or what, but a culmination would be nice. Not that the rest of it wasn't fun. She loved exploring his lean body, with her hands, lips, and tongue, but she wanted more.

When they were finished she told him she had to leave. He did not argue and only said he would walk her to the door.

"Well, have fun in Spain," she said as she waved from the hallway.

"Wait." He came up to her and put his hands gently around the back of her neck before pressing her to the wall and kissing her once more. "Alright, I'll see you around."

Caroline nodded and left his apartment down the dingy stairs that led to the street, the street she was now stopped at in the car with her father. The light turned green, and they continued.

As soon as the truck cleared the city and turned onto the highway Caroline began to relax. Her dad was talking about the goings-on in Tryton in that way he had of repeating everything several times with slight variations. It was like tracing a shape over and over but never staying exactly on the lines. She rolled down the window a little more to let the warm air roll over her bare arm and stared at the countryside flying by. With the aid of sunshine and seventy-miles-an-hour, the yellows, greens, and browns of unremarkable fields blurred together into a gleaming Monet. The buzz of the wind and her dad's constant drone were nice for white noise, but Caroline wanted music. She dug out a CD she made of some songs Alex talked about one time and popped it in the CD player. As the first notes reached her ears she saw his face clearly, strong jawed and smiling with dimples on each side. _Caroline and Alex._ _It sounded good together. They would be good together._ She looked at her reflection in the side mirror. Her eyes looked more vivid in this light, and her short hair shown golden rather than its usual ash brown. _Yes_, she and Alex would look good together. She wondered when she would see him again, and her heart ached. The song changed to another one Alex recommended, and her dad went on talking about how badly the garden needed rain, completely unaware of his daughter's longing.


End file.
